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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 



THADDEUS STEVEIS^S 



DELIVERED IN THE 






HOUSE OF REPEESENTATIVES. 



WASHINGTON, D. C, DECEMBER 17, 18G8. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 

1869. 



ADDRESSES 



BemarJcs by Mr. Dickey. 

Mr. Speaker : The paiuful duty lias devolved upon me of 
auuonuciug to this House the death of \uy predecessor, Hon. 
Thaddeus Stevens, of Peniisylvauia. 

This distinguished statesman was not merely my predeces- 
sor in this body, but in my childhood my tiither taught me to 
admire and love him, who was the instructor and guide of my 
youth and the friend of my mature years. If an intimacy 
with wise and noble men be one of the greatest blessings that 
can crown a man, then in no j^art of my career have I been so 
fortunate as in my association with Thaddeus Stevens. It 
was in his office, and in connection with him, that I com- 
menced my i^rofessional life; and from that moment, through 
the turmoil of many legal and political contests, down to the 
moment when in his last will he selected me to i3erforni the 
last service one man can ask from his fellow, our friendship 
suffered neither diminution nor interrui^tion. 

Informed that my duty requires of me a sketch of the his- 
tory of my friend, I hope to be pardoned by the House for any 
prolixity of statement, i^romising to leave to others abler and 
fitter, his associates here who are to follow me, the analysis 
of his character as a statesman and the story of his struggles 
and triumphs in this arena, where he was recognized as a 
great leader and bore the name of "The Old Commoner." 

Thaddeus Steveus was born at Danville, Caledonia county, 
Vermont, on the 4th day of April, 1792, and died at his 
residence in this city at midnight on the 11th day of Au- 
gust, 1868. His parents were poor, in a community where 
poverty was the rule and wealth the exception. Of his father 




REMARKS OF MR. DICKEY ON THE 



I kuow but little, save tliat lie enlisted in the war of 1812, 
and died in service. Upon his mother chiefly fell the burden 
of rearing their four sons. She was a woman of great energy, 
strong will, and deep piety. Early seeing the ambition and 
fully sympathizing with the aspirations of her crippled boy, 
she devotedly seconded his eftbrts for the acquisition of 
knowledge, and by her industry, energy, and frugality largely 
aided him in procuring a collegiate education. He returned 
her aft'ection with the full strength of his strong natiu-e, and 
for many years after he had acquired fame and fortune in his 
adopted State had the pleasure of making an annual pilgrim- 
age to the home which he had provided for her comfort, and 
where she dispensed, with means he furnished, a liberal 
charity. 

In the last year of his life, in writing his will with his own 
hand, while making no provision for the care of his own 
grave, he didr-not forget that of his mother, but set apart an 
ample siun for that piu'pose, directing yearly payments upon 
the condition "that the sexton keep the gTave in good order, 
and plant roses and other cheerful flowers at each of the foiu" 
corners of said grave every spring." In the same instrument, 
in devising $1,000 in aid of the establishment at his home of 
a Baptist church, of which society his mother was an earnest 
member, he says: 

I do this out of respect to the memory of my mother, to whom .1 owe what- 
ever little prosperity I have had on earth, which, small as it is, I desire em- 
phatically to acknowledge. 

After attending the common schools of the neighborhood 
he fitted for college at the Peacham Academy, in his native 
county, entered the University of Vermont, and remained 
there about two years. The college suspending operations 
on account of the war, he proceeded to Dartmouth, and 
graduated at that institution in 1814. After reading law at 
Peacham, in the ofiice of Judge Mattocks, for some months, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 6 

he left his native State and settled in Pennsylvania in 1815, 
first in the to^vll of York, where he tanght an academy and 
pnrsned his legal stndies. The rules of conrt in that dis- 
trict having requh-ed students to read one year in the office 
of an attorney, he went to Belair, Harford connty, Maryland, 
and was there examined and admitted to practice in Angust, 
1816. He at once returned to Pennsylvania and opened a law 
office at Gettysburg, in the county of Adams, and entered 
upon the practice of his profession in that and adjoining- 
counties. He was soon in the possession of an extensive and 
lucrative business, to which he gave his entire attention for 
some sixteen years. I may here be allowed briefly to allude to 
a few traits of Mr. Stevens as a lawyer. Although not perhaps 
of great national reputation as such, he was recognized by the 
profession in a State claiming some eminence for the high 
character of her advocates and jurists as one of her greatest 
lawyers, and was so pronounced by three of her ablest chief 
justices, Gibson, Black, and Lewis, who tried him by the sure 
test of uniform power. 

I need scarcely say that Mr. Stevens shone at the bar with 
the same clearness of statement, force, and eloquence of ex- 
pression, power of argumentation, wit, sarcasm, and invee- 
tive, which he emjiloyed in legislative halls, and that there, 
as here, he was master of all the weapons of debate. As an 
advocate he was always jealous of the rights of his profes- 
sion, and resisted their innovation. He was always courteous 
to the court, and uniformly brief, never speaking beyond an 
hour upon any question. He never took or used notes of the 
evidence, the speeches of opponents, or the rulings of the 
court, trusting wholly to a memory that never failed him. In 
the preparation of his law he was industrious and careful; 
here, too, relying upon his memory, his brief seldom con- 
tained more than the name of the case and page of the book. 



4 REMARKS OF MR. DICKEY ON THE 

In arguinent he cited but few autliorities, and those directly 
to his purpose. Grasping one or two points which he con- 
ceived vital to the cause, he directed all his energies and 
con(;entrated all his powers upon them, giving little attention 
to subordinate (piestions. No matter with whom associated, 
he never tried a cause save upon his own theory of the case. 
At nisi irrius he uniformly insisted on personally seeing 
and examining, before they were called, the important wit- 
nesses on his own side. Generally relying upon the strength 
and presentation of his own case, he seldom indulged in 
extended cross-examination of witnesses, though possess- 
ing rare ability in that direction. He never consented to be 
concerned or to act as counsel in the prosecution of a capital 
case, not from opposition to the punishment, but because it 
was repugnant to his feelings and that service was the duty 
of public officers. He was as remarkable for his consideration, 
forbearance, and kindness when opposed by the young, weak, 
or diffident, as he was for the grim jest, haughty sneer, 
pointed sarcasm, or fierce invective launched at one who 
entered the lists and challenged battle with such weapons. 
He was always willing to give advice and assistance to the 
young and inexperienced members of the profession, and his 
large library was ever open for their use. He had many 
young men read law with him, though he did not care to 
have students. There were, however, two recommendations 
which never failed to ])rocure an entrance into his office : am- 
Ijition to learn, and inability to pay for the privilege. 

Mr. Stevens first engaged actively in politics with the rise 
of the anti-Masonic party in 1828-'29, which he joined in their 
o]»p(»sition to secret societies. He was elected to the popular 
branch of the legislature of his State, in 1833, as a rei)resent- 
ative from the county of Adams, and continued to serve in 
that body almost without interruption until 1840, during 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 



wliicli entire period lie was the leader of his party in the 
legislatnre, if not the State. During this service he chain- 
Ijioned many measures of improvement, among others the 
common-school system of Pennsylvania, which at a critical 
moment he saved from overthrow by a speech which he always 
asserted to have been, in his opinion, the most effective he 
ever made. By that single effort he established the principle, 
never since seriously questioned in Pennsylvania, that it is the 
duty of the State to provide the facilities for education to all 
the children of the Commonwealth. In behalf of this measure 
he joined hands with his bitterest personal and political ene- 
mies. He highly eulogized for his course upon this question 
the chief of the opposing political party. Governor George 
Wolf, and denounced with all his power of invective the time- 
servers of his own party. Himself the child of poverty he 
plead the cause of the poor, and by the force of his will, intel- 
lect, and eloquence, broke down the barriers enacted by 
wealth, caste, and ignorance, and earned a name that will 
endure as long as a child of Pennsylvania gratefully remem- 
bers the blessings conferred by light and knowledge. 

In 1837-'38, Mr. Stevens was a member of the convention 
called to revise the constitution of Pennsylvania, an assem- 
blage which numbered as members many of the strongest men 
of the State, among whom Mr. Stevens stood in the front 
rank. This convention, notwithstanding the able and stren- 
uous opposition of a strong minority, led by Mr. Stevens, 
inserted the word "white" as a qualification of suffrage, thus 
disfranchising a race. On this account he refused to append 
his name to the completed instrument, and stood alone in such 
refusal. For the same cause he opposed, but nnsuccessfidly, 
the ratification by the people. 

In 1842 Mr. Stevens, finding himself deeply in debt by rea- 
son of losses in the iron business, aud liabilities incurred for 



6 REMARKS OF MR. DICKEY ON THE 

numerous ciidorseiueuts made for friends, removed to Lancas- 
ter county, one of the largest, richest, and most popidous 
counties of the State, and resumed the practice of his profes- 
sion. His reputation as a hxwyer had preceded him, and his 
income almost at once became the largest at the bar. In a few 
years he paid his debts, and saved the bulk of his estate. In 
1848 and 1850 he was elected to CongTess from Lancaster 
county, when, declining to be a candidate, he returned to his 
profession until 1858, when he was again elected, and con- 
tinued to hold the seat without interruption till his death. 
His coui'se upon this floor has passed into and forms no 
unimportant part in the history of a mighty people in a 
great crisis of their existence. But I have promised to leave 
to others to say what may be proper in illustration of his 
great achievements in his latter days. 

. To those here who judged of the personal appearance of the 
deceased only as they looked on him bearing the bm-den of 
years and stricken with disease, though he still stood with eye 
undimmed and will undaunted, I may say that in his prime 
he was a man physically well proportioned, muscular and 
strong, of clear and ruddy com})lexion, with face and feature 
of great mobility and under ijerfect command and control. In 
his youth and early manhood, notAvithstanding his lameness, 
he entered with zest into almost all of the athletic games and 
si)orts of the times. He was an expert swimmer and an 
excellent horseman. When residing at Gettysburg he fol- 
lowed the chase, and kept his hunters and hounds. 

On a recent visit to his iron-works I found the old moun- 
tain men garrulous with stories of the risks and dangers of 
the bold rider, as with horse and hound he followed the deer 
along the slopes and through the gaps of the South mountain. 

In private life, among his friends, Mr. Stevens was ever 
genial, kind, and considerate. To them he was linked with 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 



hooks of steel. For them he wonkl hibor and sacrifice without 
stint, complaint, or regret. In his hours of relaxation there 
could be no more genial companion. His rare conversational 
l)Owers, fund of anecdote, brilliant sallies of wit, and wise say- 
ings upon the toi«c of the hour, made his company much 
sought, and many of these are the current coin of the circle 
in which he moved. 

Mr. Stevens was an honest and truthful man in public and 
in private life. His word was sacred in letter and spirit, and 
was never paltered in a double sense. In money matters he 
was liberal to a faidt, and out of his immense professional 
income he left but a meager estate. In his private charity he 
Avas lavish. He was incapable of saying no in the presence of 
want or misery. His charity, like his political convictions, 
regarded neither creed, race, nor color. He was a good clas- 
sical scholar, and was well read in ancient and modern litera- 
ture, especially on subjects of philosophy and law. In his old 
age he read but few books. Shakspeare, Dante, Homer, Mil- 
ton, and the Bible could, however, generally be found upon 
the table in his sleeping room, where he was accustomed to 
read in bed. He was simple and temperate in his habits. 
He disliked the use of tobacco, and for forty years never 
used or admitted to his house intoxicating drinks except by 
direction of his physician. 

Mr. Stevens was deepl}' loved and fully trusted by his con- 
stituents. He was often in advance of their views ; sometimes 
he ran counter to their prejudices or passions ; yet such was 
his popularity with them, so strong their faith in his wisdom, 
in the integrity of his action and the piuity of his jjurpose that 
they never failed to sustain him. Popidar with men of all 
parties, with his own supporters his name was a household 
word. To them, and among themselves, "Old Thad" was a 
phrase of endearment ; while even his foes spoke of him Avith 



REMAEKS OF MR. DICKEY ON THE 



piidc as the '' Great Commoner." No man ever died more 
deeply mourned bj' a constituency tlian Tliaddeus Stevens. 

ITaviiijj;' briefly selected some of the incidents that marked 
the history of my friend, I will in conclusion sa}' a few words 
of him on a subject in connection with which he is probably 
more widely kno^^ni tha.n any other — slavery. Mr. Stevens was 
always an anti-slavery man. From the time he left his native 
mountains to the moment of his death he was not only anti- 
slavery in the common acceptation of the term, but a bold, 
fearless, determined and uncompromising foe to opi)ression in 
any and every form. He was an abolitionist before there was 
such a party name. 

His opposition to American slavery, no matter what his 
party connection, was never based upon mere questions of 
political economj". He always viewed it as a great wrong, at 
war with the fundamental principles of this and all good gov- 
ernment, as a sin in the sight of God and a crime against man. 
For many years, long before it became popular to do so, he 
denounced this institution as the great crime of the nation, on 
the stump, at the forum, in party conventions and deliberative 
assemblies. On this question he was always in advance of his 
party, his State, and his constituents. Always resident in a 
border county, he defended the fugitive on all occasions, 
asserted the right of free speech, and stood between the aboli- 
tionist and the mob, often with peril to himself. This was one 
great cause of his having been so long in a minority, and of 
his entrance late in life into the councils of the nation ; but for 
this he was fully comjiensated by living to see the destruction 
of an institution which he loathed, and by receiving for his 
reward, and as the crowning glory of his life, the blessings of 
millions he had so largely aided to make free. 

The remains of Mr. Stevens lie in Lancaster, in a private 
cemetery established by an old friend, in a lot selected by him- 



LIFE AXD CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 



self, for reasons stated in the touching and beautiful epitaph 
prepared by himself for inscription ui)on his tomb : 

J. repose ill this quiet and secluded spot, not from any natural preference 
for solitude, but finding other cemeteries limited by charter rules as to race, I 
have chosen it that I mip^ht be enabled to illustrate in my death the principles 
which I have advocated through a long life — equality of man before liis Creator. 

Let us trust and believe that if the earnest and sincere 
prayers of millions of the jjoor, downtrodden, and oppressed 
may smooth the pathway of the traveller on his journey from 
this world to the boiu-ne of all, his has been a happy exit. 

I offer the following resolutions : 

Resolved, That this House has heard with deep regret the death of Hon. Thad- 
deus Stevens, a member of this House from the State of Pennsylvania. 

Resohcd, That as a testimony of respect to the memory of this distinguished 
statesHiau the officers and members of this House will wear the usual badge of 
mourning for the space of thirty days. 

Resolveil, That a copy of these resolutions be transmitted to the family of the 
deceased by the Clerk. 

Resulted, That this House, as a further mark of respect to the memory of the 
deceased, do now adjourn. 



Remarks by Mr. Poland. 

Mr. Speaker: I rise to second the resolutions offered by the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania. The town of Danville, where 
Mr. Stevens was born, and the town of Peacham, in which he 
lived until he had completed his education and attained his 
majority, are both adjacent to the town where I reside, and 
form a part of the district I have the honor to represent. It 
seems appropriate that a representative of Mr. Stevens's native 
State and the representative of his native town and county 
should perform this duty, but I regiet that it has fallen upon 
one who had so little personal knowledge of him. Mr. Stevens 
removed from Yermont to Pennsylvania before my birth, and 
I became a resident of his native county but a few years since, 
and after his youthful associates were nearly all gone. I met 



10 REMARKS or MR. POLAND ON THE 

him once or twice in Vernunit when he came to visit his aged 
mother, but except this I never saw him until I came to the 
Senate at the beginning of the thirty-ninth Congress. Since 
I became a member of this House his advanced age and broken 
health i)revented his active participation in much of its busi- 
ness, and for a great part of the time his attendance during 
its sessions. I can, therefore, do little more than express the 
general estimation of his public character and service ent-er- 
tained by myself in common with the people of his native 
State. I have learned that the parents of Mr. Stevens were 
poor, and that his education was mainly secured by his own 
energy and efforts. Wlien he removed to the State of Penn- 
sylvania to begin his career of active manhood he went 
among strangers, dependent for friends, for success in busi- 
ness, for professional or other advancement, for the means 
of living even, upon what he might, by force of his own 
unaided efforts and ability, be able to win. How hardly he 
struggled, how bravely he fought, how successfully he won 
friends, professional distinction, political advancement, name 
and fame, we have been told by his long-time friend and 
neighbor and successor in this House. His career and his 
success is another instance of what is so common in this 
country, but so uncommon in all others : the attainment of 
the highest professional and political distinction from the 
humblest condition by the mere force of ijersonal effort and 
ability. 

Mr. Stevens was another tribute to our system of free insti- 
tutions, founded upon the equality of all men — institutions 
which he loved so well, and exerted himself so faithfully to 
extend and perpetuate. That Mr. Stevens was a man of 
marked ability has ever been conceded, as well by his politi- 
cal opponents as by his political and personal friends. He 
luul indomitable courage, energy of character, and tenacious 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 11 



will ; SO that when he had once settled upon a coui'se of action 
he pursued it to the end with an tipparent, almost reckless, 
disregard of the opinions and judgments of other men. His 
leading and characteristic ambition seemed to be to elevate 
the masses of his feUow-men. He seemed ever to desire and 
to labor that all men should have an equal start and a fair 
chance m the race of life. His earlj^ and successful efforts in 
his adopted State in the cause of popular and general educa- 
tion were an apt and enduriug illustration of this great trait 
of his character. He loved freedom and liberty for himself, 
and for all men as well. He hated every form of tyranny and 
oppression which clogged and opposed the advancement of 
men to better conditions ; and especially did he abhor and 
detest that vast oppression which once prevailed in this 
country and which seemed likely to prevail forever — human 
slavery. Accordingly, when that institution came to be one 
of the subjects of political controversy in the country, he was 
found among its most determined and advanced opi)onents. 
It is not saying more than I believe to be just to him that to 
his efforts as much as to those of any one man is the country 
indebted for its final oveithrow. When the country had 
become involved in a civil war of appalling magnitude upon 
this question of slaverj', and the great question of the time 
was whether the Union or slavery should go down, Mr. 
Stevens seemed to rise at once to the magnitude and majesty 
of the occasion. 

His leadership of the Union men and opponents of slavery 
and its abettors during the period of the war, in the great 
American Commons, was perhaps as brilliant and successful 
as the world has ever seen. Though I have no reason to doubt 
he loved his country, its free institutions, and its government 
as well as others, I have thought his great efforts in their 



12 REMARKS OF MR. POLAND ON THE 



behalf during that period were actuated as much by his 
hatred of slavery as by his lo\'e of couiitr^^ 

I will uot further allude to Mr. Stevens's congressional career, 
though his public life is mainly included in it, but leave 
that to others Avhose opportunities to know it are so much 
better than my own. Mr. Stevens had very warm sympathies 
and great kindness of heart. JS'o case of suffering or distress 
ever appealed to him in vain ; his heart and his hand were 
always open to sympathize Avith and relieve the needy and the 
downtrodden of the earth. 

I am aware that since the close of the war, in dealing with 
the subject of the restoration of the revolted States and their 
people, Mr. Stevens has been charged with entertaining 
malignant and uncharitable feelings, and being influenced by 
them in his i)ublic action. So far as this charge applies to 
the masses of the people of those States, who might well be 
regarded as the deluded victims of unwise leaders, I have 
never seen anj evidence of it-s tiuth. He did regard the pro- 
moters and leaders of the rebellion as great criminals, who 
ought to be punished as such ; he felt a kind of righteous and 
holy indignation against them, and as if the nation itself was 
endangered unless justice and judgment were meted out 
against them. Mr. Stevens always retained a strong feeling 
of attachment to his native State, and a very high regard for 
her people. It Avas a sufflcient passport to his favor that the 
applicant came from Vermont. So long as his mother lived 
he made almost annual pilgrimages to the old home uj^ou the 
Green mountains to see to her comfort and to visit the scenes 
of his boyhood. I do not think I ever met him since I have 
been in Washington but he inquired about something or 
somebody in Vermont, and almost always had some amusing 
anecdote to relate connected with his early life. His strong 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 13 

filial affection is beautifully sliown bj' the provision in his will 
for the annual planting of roses and other cheerful flowers at 
the corners of the graves of his mother and brother ; and his 
attachment to the scenes and memories of his youthful days 
is equally well exhibited by his bequest to the Juvenile 
Library Association of the old Peacham Academy, where he 
received his preparatory education. The people of Vermont 
felt a just and laudable pride- in Mr. Stevens and in his dis- 
tinguished public career. They watched his success, as they 
have many others of her sons who have gone out from her 
and attained position and fame in other States. In the case 
of Mr. Stevens, his ijublic course was generally such as com- 
mended itself to their own judgment. Sometimes he an- 
nounced doctrines and advocated measures more extreme 
than they were prepared to accept ; but they ever felt that 
for him something was to be pardoned to the spuit of liberty. 
The people of Vermont always loved to believe that the 
strong love of freedom and independence for all men exhib- 
ited by him — his hatred of all forms of oppression, and his 
efforts to elevate and benefit the masses, were, to some extent, 
due to his being born in Vermont. The early history of Ver- 
mont was that of a continual struggle against what they 
deemed to be unlawful and unjust attempts of other States to 
obtain jm-isdiction and exercise governmental power over 
them. These struggles had ceased, to be sure, ]mov to the 
birth of Mr. Stevens ; but the heroes and statesmen who were 
her leaders in those trying days were still alive and gave tone 
and temper to public sentiment and opinion for many years 
after. We have loved to believe in Vermont that the free 
and independent opinions inhaled by him in his youth with 
the free air of our gTand mountains in some degree con- 
tributed to make him what he was so emphatically, the friend 
of the oppressed and the foe of the oppressor. Like other 



14 EEMAEKS OF ME. MOOEHEAD ON THE 

men, he had his faults; but he has done so much for the great 
cause of humanity that this and all future generations in this 
land have ample cause to bless and revere his memory. To 
show the estimate in which Mr. Stevens was held by the peo- 
ple of Vermont, I ask to have the Clerk read the following 
resolutions, which were unanimously adopted by the Vermont 
legislature at their recent session. 
The Clerk read as follows : 

Mr. Varnum, of Peacbaui, offered the following joint resolution: 

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives, That so great a loss to 
the nation as the death of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens deserves, and should 
receive, of the representatives of the people of his native State in general assem- 
bly convened, a befitting and appropriate recognition. 

Resolved, That we mourn and deeply sympathize with those of his adopted 
State, whom he so faithfully represented -in the councils of our nation, and by 
whom he was so nobly sustained, in this their great bereavement and irreparable 
loss, of one so firm, so devoted to the interests, the welfare, and the honor of 
the people. 

Resolved, That his patriotism, his devotion to the principles of liberty, justice, 
and equality, his unswerving fidelity to the trusts of his State and the trusts 
of the Union, have left an honorable and ineffaceable impression on the pages 
of history and on the records of a great Eepublic. 

Resolved, That we will remember him as a sou of Vermont, and will cherish 
his memory, and point with pride to his life as an example of patriotism for 
ourselves and our posterity. 

Resolved, That the governor be requested to transmit a copy of these resolu- 
tions to the governor of Pennsylvania. • 



BemarJcs by Mr. Moorliead. 

Mr. Speaker: My acquaintance with Thaddeus Stevens 
began during the administration of Governor Eitner, of Penn- 
sylvania, about the year 1836. He was then a bold and daring 
leader of his party. Always in advance of public opinion, he 
constantly antagonized it with a valor and boldness une- 
qualled. Usually political leaders ascertain the current and 
drift of public sentiment and accommodate themselves to it. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 15 



Not SO witli liim. He formed liis own opinions and acted on 
his own convictions. Opposition, so far from weal^ening his 
resolves, only nerved him for w^hatever effort was necessary 
to the accomplishment of his piirjjose. He created j)ublic 
opinion and moulded public sentiment. In this, above all othei 
traits, lay the greatness of Thaddeus Stevens. He was always 
ready to defend his views, never shrinking from any service 
requirecL by his fidelity to duty. The ^^ctims overthrown by 
his ijower and logic, and impaled by his w it, irony, and sar- 
casm, are legion. Many of them, like himself, have gone to 
their reward; others remain, retaining a lively recollection of 
the " Old Commoner." 

While he was at times terribly severe, and more rarely dis 
courteous, and sometimes in the intensity of political excite- 
ment wounded the feelings of his friends, yet at heart he was 
eminently kind, generoits, and forgiving. 

The history of his public life is before the world ; his name 
and fame are a part of the possession of the people. While 
free government endures Thaddeus Stevens will be remem- 
bered with honor, and his services in its maintenance will be 
recalled with gratitude. But his greatest achievements were 
undoubtedly his agency in the establishment of the common 
school system of Pennsylvania, and in the emancipation of 
four million slaves. Both these great measures would un- 
doubtedly have been adopted in time without him, but botli 
were hastened by his strong and able support. 

When, a member of the Pennsylvania legislature, in 1833, 
he commenced his public advocacy of free schools, many of 
our industrious, frugal, agricultural population believed that 
every man should take care of his o^vn family and educate his 
children or not, as seemed to him best. 

The idea of taxing one man to pay for schooling the children 
of another was looked upon by them as an innovation and an 



16 REMARKS OF MR. MOORHEAD ON THE 

injustice. His constituency held a meeting- and instructed 
him to oppose the proposition. He boldly refused, denounced 
them for their selfishness, carried his measure, and also a 
majority of his constituents with him. The abolition of slavery 
is too recent, and his action too well known, not only to the 
people of the United States but of the world, to require any 
comment of mine. I cannot refrain, however, fi'om saying 
that in 1850, being a visitor in this city, I obtained through 
the coiu'tesy of a friend admittance to the floor of the House. 
Mr. Stevens was upon the floor at the time, speaking on the 
evils of slavery. The leading members from the slaveholding 
States were gathered in front of his desk. As he portrayed 
the degradation and crime of slavery in such a manner as he 
only could i)ortray them, scowls settled upon their brows, con- 
temjit curled their lips, and oaths could be distinctly heard 
hissing through their teeth. This was in the days when south- 
ern gentlemen enforced their argvunents with an appeal to the 
duel, and southern ruffians resorted to the bowie-knife and 
bludgeon. I felt alarmed for him, but he proceeded unem- 
barrassed by interruptions and apparently unconscious of the 
mutterings of the storm. As, reaching his climax, he spoke 
of Virginia, the proud mother of Presidents, become a breeder 
of slaves for the southern market, the anger of her represent- 
atives could scarcely be restrained ; yet he was as cool as if 
addressing a jury in his county court-house. 

This conveniently illustrates the last remark I wish to make, 
namely, that Thaddeus Stevens was pre-eminently a brave 
man, who would do and dare everything in the vindication of 
what he believed to be the truth. But, Mr. Speaker, he is 
gone ; peace be to his ashes. Vermont has the honor of his 
birth, Pennsylvania the more enduring honor of having 
adopted him as her son ; for were not her valleys his home? 
her temi^les of justice his shrine, her legislative halls his first 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 17 

political prize, lier people liis constituents, her interests bis 
study, lier progress his delight, her honor his glory, and is not 
her soil his grave ! Let us iuiitate his virtues and cherish his 
memory. 



Bemarls hy Mr. Maynard. 

In the awful x^resence of death every voice is silent except 
the voice of sorrow and eulogy. The infirmities of mortality 
are forgotten, the good alone is remembered ; criticism is dis- 
armed; censure loses its power; men instinctivelj^ concede, 
as they expect, this sad immunity to the grave. It is, let us 
believe, an unconscious prefiguration of the better life to come. 

While offering my tribute to the memory of our venerable 
and deceased associate, the late Thaddeus Stevens, it is proper 
tliat I confine myself to that portion of his life spent in the 
national Capitol. Others knew him, it may be, as a student, 
a teacher, a lawyer, a neighbor — knew him in the amenities 
and benefactions of home. My acquaintance with him was 
fin-med here, and here, I may say in this building, was our 
intercourse. I met him the first time at the assembling of the 
thirty-sixth Congress, in the winter of 1859. It was a period 
of great political excitement. The struggle had already begun 
which within less than tAvo years developed into civil war. It 
was a time to call forth the best efforts of the best men. Mem- 
bers then of different political parties, we naturally, necessa- 
rily perhaps, pursued what was felt to be a common puri)ose 
by different methods and distinct organizations. The scenes 
of that Congress are not easily forgotten. The almost daily 
contests between Lovejoy and Corwin and Stevens on the one 
side, and Hindman and Barksdale and Branch on the other, 
sijeaking alone of the dead, but settled the issues for the com- 
2 



18 REMARKS OF MR. MAYNARD ON THE 

ins" y fills of bloodshed and carnage. Some of us, foreseeing 
the eahunitous time, interposed to stay the strife, praying that 
if it were possible this cup of sorrow might pass. Visions of 
desolated homes, of screaming women, famishing children, 
and old men, the victims of torture ; fields laid waste, and all 
that makes existence lovely perverted — visions frightfully 
realized — were ever present before us whose people occupied 
what we knew must be the battle-ground in case of armed 
coutiiet. To avert this terrible visitation I need not say we 
labored with all the earnestness of agonizing natures. The 
records remain to tell of our labors. I refer to them at this 
time and in this connection to attest the feeling of confidence 
we entertained toward Mr. Stephens. Armed though he was 
in completest panoply, and ready for every encounter, we all 
felt that if war should ensue it would not be his generous 
nature which woirld strike the first blow. This is not the occa- 
sion to dwell upon the remembered incidents of his intercourse 
with my associates — still speaking alone of the dead — with 
Gilmer, of Xorth Carolina; Bouligny, of Louisiana: Bristow 
and Anderson, of Kentucky ; and Brabson and Hatton, of my 
own State. It was not the intercourse of men who expected 
soon to become enemies. So we separated at the inaugura- 
tion of Mr. Lincoln full of anxiety, yet not without ho])e. 

When, the next winter, we met again as members of a new 
Congress, all was changed. A million of men were in arms, 
and the life of the nation hung ui)on the issue of battles. We 
were both upon the Committee of Ways and Means, charged, 
as the House was at that time organized, with the examina- 
tion of all financial questions, both of revenue and expenditure, 
and with the preparation of all revenue bills, which, under the 
Constitution, nuist originate in this House. The expenditures 
of the government, never less than two millions a day, and 
sometimes reaching three millions, made a demand upon the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVEXS. 19 

public resources wholly without precedent and greatly beyond 
what many regarded our ability to meet. Besides, interven- 
tion by at least two of the great European powers for months 
seemed imminent, and a struggle between the republic and 
the united civilized world. And, Avhat was still more disheart- 
ening to one in the position of Mr. Stevens, he lacked confi- 
dence in the ability and skill both of our civil and military 
leaders, and in some important instances he had little faith in 
their devotion to the cause so dear to the general heart. The 
early decisions of the field were not always assuring, and even 
here there were not a few, timid and unbelieving, ready to flee 
at the first sign of irresolution on the part of our leader. Yet 
neither on the floor nor in the committee room did his courage 
once weaken or his purpose grow infirm. On the contrary, we 
saw his energies increase with ever^^ new emergency, and his 
spirit rise buoyant as those around him became more despond- 
ing. Among the elements of our final success his unfaltering 
leadership at this cardinal period was not the. least. While 
events were shaping themselves and the public judgment was 
balfled by the novelty of the situation, weakness, doubt, insta- 
bility in that quarter would have been disastrous, might have 
been fatal. The unabated hostility towards him by the parti- 
zans of the rebellion is explained only by their consciousness 
of his unyielding and overmastering power. 

The internal revenue system, the currency system, the 
national bank system, the form of the national debt originated 
at this juncture and under his direction. In no instance, I 
believe, did his individual views entirely prevail, and there 
were points upon which he was diametrically opposed by the 
action of the two houses. Having known his opinion.^ at that 
time, I could easily appreciate his feeling of injustice at the 
construction afterward given to certain scattered expressions, 



20 KEMAEKS OF MR. MAYNARD ON THE 

lifted, possibly, in reference to the predominant sentiments of 
others rather than to his o^Yn. 

His subsequent career is too recent and too familiar to be 
dwelt ujion. His theory of the rebellion and of the legal con- 
sequences of its overthrow, his views upon reconstruction, and. 
the part he took in the late contest for precedence between 
the legislature and the executive are well understood. Dur- 
ing the last year we all felt that his sands had nearly run ; 
day by day we saw him borne into the hall upon the arms of 
young men, weak as a child, but eager and attentive, whether 
the discussion turned upon foreign or home affairs. No subject 
was abo\'e his grasp, none beneath his notice. Treaty stipula- 
tions with a great power and the salary of the humblest clerk 
alike found in him an advocate. Toward the close of the sum- 
mer session nature made a final rally. For a few days the 
old vivacity returned — the brilliant repartee and unexpected 
sallies that all enjoyed so much. He himself felt the renewal 
of strength and a revival of hope and the future. It was the 
last glimmer of the expiring flame. We had scarcely dis- 
persed to our distant homes before the telegraph announced 
that he was no more. And so he passed away in the mellow 
autumn of his age, having lived to enjoy the ripened fruits of 
the spring-time planting and sunnner culture. 

A maxim of one of the sages would have us wait until the 
end of life before pronouncing it happy. A historian, closing 
the biogTaphy of one of the illustrious men of his time, ex- 
claims, in the spirit of this maxim, " Tu vero felLr, non vitcv 
tanfum dariiate, sed etimn opportunitate mortis.^'' If a brilliant 
career be a hapj)y one, and if that career be brilliant, which, 
unaided by wealth, family or powerful friends, attains the 
front rank among the great leaders of a great epoch and 
nudvcs a name for ban or blessing in every household of the 
land, then, indeed, is this champion of the oppressed to be 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 21 

accounted liappy; but thrice happy in the opportune article 
of his death. Though the strength of manhood was gone, the 
babble and drivel of dotage had not sui^ervened. He had 
seen his country emerge, after a long- and painful vStrife, from 
the clouds and turmoil of civil war, and resume her place 
among- the nations, freer, richer, stronger, happier, and more 
honored than before ; entering- upon a new era of prosperity 
and growth, excelling- them all in the splendor of her renowTi, 
even as one star excelleth another star in glory. The princi- 
ples for which he had contended through a lengthened life had 
been recognized and adopted. His life-work was done, and 
who shall say it had not been done well ? The Son of David 
has said there is a time to die ; a time when to die is better 
than to liye ; and fortunate are they who are summoned at 
this auspicious moment, j)ermitted to attain the full measure 
of their fame, but not to survive their reputation or their use- 
fulness to mankind. 

The character of Mr. Stevens I shall not attempt. To his 
life-long friends its delineation will be a work of pathetic pride ; 
I leave it to them, remarking- upon two traits which seemed 
very prominent. The first was manliness as opposed to effem- 
inacy. Not his 

" The Doriau mood 
Of flutes and soft recorders." 

He evinced little respect for mere taste and refinement and 
delicacy and luxury and sentiment and the whole chapter of 
exquisitism, but delighted rather in the sturdier qualities of 
the heart ami mind. The otlun- trait was his exceeding libe- 
rality, extending alike to all, to the unthankful and the evil 
as well as to the grateful and the deserAing. Where could be 
found a more unselfish friend ? And never, surely, was there 
a more generous foe. Oppression and distress never appealed 
to him in vain. The humblest obscurity did not escape his 



22 REMAKES BY MR. MAYNARD ON THE 

uotice. Opj)ositioii to slavery was a moral necessity of bis 
nature. As a legislator lie was liberal to sucb a degree tbat 
bis political associates deemed it necessary to provide a coiin- 
teri)oise in natures less impulsive and sympatbetic. His last 
eftbrt in tbe House, if I mistake not, was an appeal for an 
appropriation to tbe public cbarities of tbe District of Colum- 
bia. Tbose wbo knew bim in tbe private walks of life bear 
testimony to bis own continual and abounding cbarity, and 
" cbarity sball cover tbe multitude of sins." We cannot won- 
der, tberefore, tbat pious bands were tbere to close bis dying- 
eyes, making intercession witb Heaven in bis bebalf, or tbat 
in tbe supreme bom; devoted women slioidd administer tbe 
boly cbrism, efficacious, let us bope, beyond tbe teacbing of 
our creeds. 

To most men tbere comes, sooner or later, a period of inac- 
tion, inability for furtber progress; wben tbe world seems 
to tbem incapable of becoming any better, and every cbange 
is dreaded as likely to be for tbe worse. Tbis is tbe period of 
conservatism, and usually comes witb gray bairs and failing 
eye-sigbt. It converses witb tbe past and distrusts tbe future. 
Its look is backward and not forward. Tbis period Mr. Ste- 
vens never reacbed. No good was ever attained witbout an 
attainable better. All bis life be beld tbe outposts of tbougbt. 
Even in bis closing boiu's, we are told, be found time for dis- 
course of boiieful temper uijon public affairs and to augiu- tbe 
success of an administration be could bardly bave expected to 
see. 

As be was, so be will long be remembered. He bas left bis 
impress upon tbe form and body of tbe times. Monuments 
will be reared to perijetuate bis luime on tbe eartb. Art 
will be busy witb lier cbisel and ber pencil to preserve bis 
features and tbe image of bis mortal frame. All will be done 
tbat brass and marble and painted canvas admit of being 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 23 



(lone. The records 'of liis oflficdal acts will remain in your 
archives ; our chosen words of coniuienioration will fall into 
the channels of literature. But the influence of a gifted mind 
in niouldin^- thought and giving direction to events is not 
to be measured by words of commemoration or by oflBcial 
records. It is as measureless as the soul and enduring as 
time. Long after the brass and marble and painted canvas 
have disappeared it will still remain, transmitted from age 
to age and through successive generations. " Quidqidd ex eo 
amavimns, quirlquid mirati sv.mns, manet, mansunmqne est in 
(Oiimis hominum, in (cfernitate temporu)n,fama rerum. Posteri- 
tati^ n<(rrati(s et fraditus, superstes eriV 



Remarls hy Mr. KeUey. 

Mr. Speaker : Thaddeus Stevens was one of the most prac- 
tical of men, though his whole life was colored and influenced 
by a vision. Timid men, and those who were without faith, 
called him dogmatic and impracticable, and others spoke of 
liim as a theorist, who, to gratify a malignant or ^^ndictive 
spirit, urged extreme measures regardless of the rights, inter- 
ests, or sentiments of those they were to atfect. They knew 
but little of the man they judged. How thoroughly practical 
he was is attested by the fact that he earned by teaching the 
rudimentary branches the means to procure his collegiate 
training ; that having settled in a community in which hered- 
itary wealth was deemed a prerequisite to a respectable posi- 
tion at the bar, he made no concealment of his poverty, and 
taught school while preparing for the practice of the legal pro- 
fession and the acknowledged leadership of the bar of a large 
section of his adopted State ; that he commanded the confi- 
dence of every judge before whom he appeared in his extended 



24 REMARKS BY MR. KELLEY ON THE 

raii^c of practice, and secured the atfectionate regard of all 
his young professional brethren; by the freqnency with which 
the people among" whom he settled, whether of the York, the 
Adams, or the Lancaster district, reqnired him, at whatever 
sacrifice of prejudice on their part or of pecuniary interest on 
his, to reinesent them in the legislatures of the State and 
nation, and conventions summoned for the consideration of 
the gravest topics ; and, above all, by the commanding influ- 
ence he exercised in every deliberative assembly of which he 
was a member. 

I heard a prominent member of the 38th Congress say of 
Mr. Stevens: "Let him go in what direction he may, it is 
always to the extreme ;" implying waywardness and inconsist- 
ency, and, in so far, misjudging him. He never labored in 
adverse directions. He sometimes accepted and supported 
propositions which were in general accord with his views, but 
to which he could not yield unqualified assent. He did this, 
as he once said, " because Congress is comjiosed of men, and 
not of angels."' He was incapable of acting inconsistently 
upon measures involving general principles. Against this 
reproach he was almost divinely panoplied. He had in his 
boyhood dreamed of a republic broader, grander, and more 
beneficent than the republic of Plato or the Utopia of Sir 
Thomas More — a republic in which every citizen might know 
the chastening influence of the fanuly relations and the joys 
of home and pursue the secrets of science and the pleasures 
of literature ; and believing, as he continued to do, in the pro- 
gress of our race and the perfectibility of our institutions, 
his public life was devoted to the realization of this, his boy- 
hood's beautiful dream. When he dedicated himself to tins 
work, in which he never faltered, the southern boundary of 
our country was near the 31st degree of latitude, and the 
course of the Mississippi defined its western limits ; but he 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 



believed that the inspiring' truths expressed in the Deehiriition 
of Independence, and embodied in oiu" State and federal con- 
stitutions, would regenerate all the governments on the 
continent. 

At the time of his birth the mouth of the Mississippi and 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico were under the dominion of 
foreign i^otentates. He was, however, old enough to under- 
stand and remember the discussion that attended our first 
acquisition of territory — the Louisiana purchase — which ex- 
tended from the Gulf along the west bank of the ]Mississi])i)i 
to the Lake of the Woods; and though sometimes disapproving 
of the means by which they were gained, he welcomed each of 
the several acquisitions of territory by which our country has 
come to stretch from ocean to ocean, to have a longer 
and more valuable coast line on the Pacific than any other 
nation, and to encircle the Gulf from Cape Sable to the Rio 
Grande. Every successive acquisition confirmed his faith and 
nerved his purpose. 

The theory of Mr. Stevens's ideal republic awarded home 
and culture to each industrious citizen. With this generous 
theory slavery was incompatible, and he was, consequently, 
the sworn and unrelenting foe of that accursed institution. He 
did not wage war upon slavery because he en^^ed the wealth 
and power of the master. He was wont to thank God for 
having blessed his youth with poverty, and was ever ready to 
confront the haughty master because his great heart sympa- 
thized with the outraged and helpless slave. 

The severauce of the Union would have dispelled INIr. 
Stevens's faith in the ultimate redemption of the laboring 
people of the world from the ignorance and ill-paid toil to 
which they have ever been subjected. The breaking out of the 
slaveholders' rebellion seemed to rejuvenate him aud inspire 
him with superhuman strength. He was always in his seat ; 



26 REMARKS liY MR. KELLEY ON THE 

mid wlu'ii sessions were so far protracted, as tliey sometimes 
were during- the 37tli, 38tli, and oOtb Congresses, that daj'light 
came and dimmed the artificial light in this hall, the old man's 
pungent witticisms would rouse many of the younger members 
from drowsiness and prostration. To maintain the Union he 
woidd have exhausted the country's resources in men and 
materials of war ; and when the rebellion had been crushed he 
proposed measures that, had they been adopted, would have 
eradicated its cause and rendered its reciurrence impossible. 

He did not propose confiscation as a punishment to those 
whose great crime merited it. He was incapable of a vindic- 
tive act. He regarded the system of land monopoly, which 
had i)revailed in the south, as the essential support of slavery, 
and he would obliterate it. He knew that the rebel leaders 
were conquered but not subdued, and appreciating the power 
they derived from the ownership of the laud on which the 
body of the people were to labor and live, he would deprive 
them of that power. He knew that the labor of the slave had 
given the land of the south its value, and he would reward the 
freedmanby giving him a homestead as a slight return for the 
unre(]uited work he had done while a slave. He knew that 
the loyal soldier had saved the south to the Union and 
freedom, and he would invite him to dwell under his own vine 
in its midst, and by his counsels assist in its future government. 
He knew that a landed aristocracy and a landless class are 
alike dangerous in a republic, and by a single act of justice 
he would al)olish both. Such were the humane considerations 
whicli i)rompted him to propose and support measures which 
the weak and time-serving denounced as harsh and viiulictive. 

The system of labor for wages, as it is exemplified In Great 
Britain aiul on the Continent, is as inconsistent with his ideal 
republic as slavery. Contemplating the ever-increasing vol- 
ume of pauperism in the British islands, and the unnatural 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 27 



and excessive toil demanded from women in tlie coal mines 
of England and Belgium, and from tender children of agri- 
cultural laborers in the fen-gangs of England, his emotions 
might have been expressed in the indignant exclamation of 
the Abbe de la IMennais, " But for labor at wages there is no 
name out of hell." That is not the freedom of which he had 
dreamed, which deprives childhood of its buoyancy, home of 
its charms, and supplants intelligent and sturdy youth by 
ignorance and jiremature decrepitude, or binds the families of 
laborious artisans to a given locality by their interest in the 
l)arish poor rates, or such inadequate wages as preclude the 
possibility of saving a sum sufticient for their own transport- 
ation to better markets for their labor. 

Mr. Stevens always believed that fidelity to republican 
principles required government to protect those whose toil is 
the source of all prosperity against the wrongs and woes 
endured by the laboring people of countries in which social 
distinctions are recognized by law, and ancient evils are 
regarded as vested rights; and with what steadiness and 
power he endeavored to protect the wages of the American 
workman, by the imposition of adequate duties on the pro- 
ductions of the under-paid laborers of Europe, every gentle- 
man on this floor knows. But he was no foe to commerce. 
In the republic his youthful imagination pictured nature lent 
all her aids to the people. The fields gave forth rich har- 
vests ; the mines yielded their precious or useful stores ; and 
each mountain stream, as it sped its way to the sea, lightened 
the burden of man by moving machinery which he guided 
Avithout exhausting labor. The consumer and the producer 
were neighbors, the most perfect means of transportaHoii 
facilitated exchanges of commodities, and the taxes imposed 
by middle men and the many agents required by trade with 
distant nations were saved to the producer. 



28 REMARKS BY MR. KELLEY OX THE 



Whether in the legislature of Pennsylvania or the CongTess 
of the United States, no project for the development of latent 
resources or improved transiiortation that came within his 
conception of constitutional limits ever failed. for the want of 
his support. In view of our almost limitless range of climate 
and soil, and boundless and diversified agricultural and min- 
eral resources, he regarded our country as sufficient not only 
for its present population, but for hundreds of millions of peo- 
ple in the enjoyment of every material comfort and the refine- 
ments of a better than Augustan age. Eegarding our country 
as the refuge of all who could flee from the inequalities of 
other lands, and the intelligence of the people as essential to 
the perpetuity of oiu" institutions, he held it to be the primary 
duty of the State to insure the proficiency of every child in 
'•ortliography, reading, writing, grammar, and arithmetic, 
which, by the exj^erience of the world, are pronounced to 
be the rudimental branches of all knowledge." He would 
not consent to withhold the privileges of an elector from a 
man because he was illiterate, and thus i^miisli him because 
the State had not done its duty by him in childhood; but he 
proposed that the government should provide school-houses, 
teachers, and other appliances for the education of all chil- 
dren, and then further enact " that no father or giiardian shall 
be permitted to vote at any election for any public officer 
who shall not have caused at least one-half of the number 
of his children or wards, between the ages of five and fifteen 
years, or if he have but one, that one, to attend school during 
at least eight months within each of the years they are enti- 
tled to atteiid school." 

To those who believe that the thing that has been is the 
the thing that shall be forever, and that that youthful giant, 
tlie American Eepublic, shall never escape from the leading- 
strings in which he has consented to be held by those bed-rid- 



LIFE AND CHAKACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 29 

den hags, the monarcliies of Europe, these theories of Mr. 
Stevens, doubtless, sound like the ravings of one bereft of rea- 
son. But those who know the attractive influence of power, 
and that the theatre of our action is a virgin continent, with 
lakes, rivers, and coast lines capable of accommodating in our 
internal or domestic commerce a commercial marine lar 
greater than that which now carries the commerce of the 
world, will regard them as the sui*e prophesy of the future 
that is before us. Mr. Stevens believed in the possibility of 
the commercial independence of the United States. He also 
knew that when that should be achieved the people coidd 
bring their domestic relations into harmony with the funda- 
mental ideas of their republican government. Wise men will 
not think of him as a visionary because he anticipated coming 
events and proposed beneficent changes before the public 
mind was rii)e for their reception. A great truth bravely 
uttered is never inopportune. Nor do time and age blunt the 
aptness of such utterances; and the advanced propositions 
and fervid words with which Thaddeus Stevens so often 
stirred our blood and swayed our judgment will shape the 
future of the country. When the age is rii^er other lips will 
echo them with persuasive and conclusive force. Then the 
American people, instead of asking the little nationalities of 
Europe what they may do, will dictate the internal policy 
those nations must adopt on pain of seeing their most valuable 
citizens, allured by our happier condition, come to swell the 
power and grandeur of the great republic. Then will his 
dream be fulfilled, and then will the world behold the fitting 
monument of Pennsylvania's greatest statesman, Thaddeus 
. Stevens. 



30 REMARKS BY MR. WOOD OX THE 



Bemarls hij Mr. Wood. 

Mr. Speaker, I feel no euibarrassmeiit in rising- to nnite 
my voice with those who thus appropriate! j' pay this last 
public tribute of respect to the memory of our late distin- 
giiislied associate. The wide divergence in opinion between 
us on the leading questions of the times cannot deter me from 
the ex]>ression of a just homage to his character as a man, 
whether considered as a citizen or as a statesman. 

As when living we recognized him as one of the foremost 
intellects in this House, so now, that being dead, let us forget 
the controversies which divided us and remember onl}" the 
higher qualities and personal attributes which have at all 
times commanded our attention. 

The great poet has said : 

" The evil that men do lives after them: 
The good is oft intei-red with their bones." 

Would that the reverse of this was true, so that the ill 
which men do should be buried with their bones, that the 
good, and the good only, will live after them. 

Mr. Speaker, this is, indeed, an interesting occasion, not 
only in the performance of these rites and the personal 
remembrances it recalls, but in the contemplations and reflec- 
tions it involuntarily forces upon the mind. It has been said 
that the disappointments in life are many and the successes 
tragically few. While this may apply to men in the aggre- 
'gate, history and observation teach that the special man may 
make conquests from time, surmounting difficulties, and 
attain the objects of his ambition. The sorrows, the trials, 
and tribulations of the general man result from the confl- 
<lence reposed in and the deferred hopes of the eternal to-mor- 
row ; while the triumphs of the special man may infallibly be 
traced to his earnest action in the ever-li\ing present — in the 
realities of to-day! Time is always capricious and often 



LIFE AND CPIARACTER OF TllADJJEUS STEVEiNS. 31 

deceitful! To the youthful it is full of hope aiul golden 
promise. In the aged it fosters those fond anticipations, but 
l)rolongs their realization; and while human expectation is 
most sanguine, it coquets with our hopes, and, it may be, flits 
from our grasp. 

The force and reason of these remarks are happily illustrated 
by the life and example of that exalted citizen whose memory 
we now celebrate, to whose intellect and personal worth we 
now pay homage. With him there was no to-morrow in life. 
He was truthful to his instincts, to his natiu'e, and his public 
career displayed the increasing activity of an ever-present 
to-day. 

Mr. Stevens was a man of rare natural mental power, which, 
together Avith much self-reliance and entire independence of 
character, rendered him at once the formidable and successful 
leader. He relied upon these qualities more than ujion the 
common resources of inferior men who yield to the errors and 
prejudices of the times rather than suffer defeat. Himself a 
man of conviction, but not of policy, he despised those who 
sacrificed the former to the latter. 

A bold thinker, and yet bolder actor, he had no patience 
with those who have no higher idea of the noble profession of 
politics than to obtain success by any means and at every 
hazard. Of a self-reliant temperament, he would not conform 
to the prevailing conventionalism of the day. He was a candid 
man. Whatever mistakes of judgment the world may attribute 
to him, they were not assumed for a purpose. Oaring little 
for poi)ular favor or prejudice, he pursued the even tenor of 
his way, enforcing the doctrines he advocated with an earnest- 
ness and power which no man could have done who did not 
himself earnestly and honestly believe them to be right. He 
utterly contemned deception and hypocrisy. Those of us w ho 
served with him on committees, and who were brought into 



32 REMARKS OF MR. BROOMALL ON THK 

requeiit persoual iutiTcourse with liim, will bear testimony to 
tlie frankness and luanliu ess of bis beariii g. Tbougb teuacions 
in adbering to bis own view, be granted tbe largest indulgence 
to tbe A'iews of otbers in tbe discussions in tbis House. 

Well, indeed, may it be said of bim tbat be was a special man, 
an embodiment of original personal individuality. Wbetber 
bis influence was exercised for tbe good of bis country tbis is 
not tbe occasion to discuss, nor can it be supposed tbat tbe 
present moment can well decide. Identified with tbe present 
revolutionary era, in wbicb be was one of tbe cbief revolution- 
ists and most prominent leaders, time, and time only, can 
determine wbetber tbe talents and cbaracteristics to wbicb I 
bave referred were of injury or benefit to bis country. In my 
judgment, tbis generation will not survive tbeir unfortunate 
influence. Be tbat as it may, be is gone — and gone forever. 
He lias passed to 

" The undiscovei'd couutiy, from whose bourne 
No traveller returns." 

Tbat be lias left bis impress upon tbe present page of bistory 
none can dispute ; tbat be i^ossessed many manly qualities none 
can deny ; tbat be was a tborougbly bonest, as well as a truly 
great man, all will admit. Let us pass bim to tbe grave as we 
bope otbers will pass ourselves — forgettingtbe frailties incident 
to our natiu-es, and wbicb appear to be inseparably connected 
witb our being. 



BemarJcs hy Mr. Broomall. 

Mr. Speaker: Few statesmen of any country bave main- 
taiiie<l tbrongbout a long public life tbe steadfast adberence 
to princii>les laid down in early manbood wbicb cbaracterized 
Tbaddeus Stevens. Universal education, equality of bunian 
rigbts, tbe elevation of tbe weak, tbe i)oor, and tbe oppressed 
were not more ardent aims and objects to bim wben be first 



LIFE AND CHARACTP:R OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 33 



espoused the cause of Inunaii progress than when three-quar- 
ters of a century had rendered his inlirni body an ill match 
for his still young and vigorous mind. 

Too frequently in men of all stations the generous impulses 
and noble sentiments of youth give place, with advancing 
years and prosperity, to that fossil petrefaction of humanity 
called conservatism, which is nothing more than the want of 
ability to seethe line of progress marked out by the hand of 
Omnipotence and the want of energy to follow it. But this 
dry rot of the soul never tainted Thaddeus Stevens. One of 
the last acts of his old age was the preparation of a plan for 
thorough and universal education in the District of Columbia, 
and among the first of his early manhood was the patronage, 
almost the parentage, of the common school system of Penn- 
sylvania. Those who havj? heard him within a year, and 
when he required support to stand, denounce, as we know 
how he could denounce, the bare suggestion of reconstructing 
the south without providing for universal suffrage, are irre- 
sistibly carried back to the period long years before when he 
stood up, almost alone, in the constitntional convention of his 
ado])ted State, the advocate of the cause of self-government 
against those who found it prudent silently to outvote the 
man they did not dare to answer. In contrasting the two 
pictures the mind is led to believe and to wonder that in the 
lapse of thirty years the man had grown no older. 

His conduct in that convention is a lesson to the young 
statesmen of his conutry. The cause of universal suffrage 
which he espoused was then an unpopular one, and there 
seemed little prospect of its ever being otherwise. The slave- 
holders of the south had long seen that if the" voice of the 
black man could be heard in the north their hold upon their 
human chattels would in time become insecure. With their 
usual sagacity they had induced northern politicians by flattery 
3 



34 REMARKS OF MR. BR.OOMALL ON THE 



aud patronage to enter their services as voluntary bondsmen. 
These bondsmen had created a public sentiment in the north 
which assigned to the black man a condition something 
between man and brute, or rather a condition sometimes the 
one and sometimes the other, as best suited their southern 
masters: man as an element of political power in his owner, 
man for the purposes of a(;countability and punishment, brute 
for all other xjurposes. 

When the Pennsylvania convention of 1838 sat, this pul)lic 
sentiment was at its height, and that body was made up, to a 
large extent, of these voluntary bondsmen. True to their 
vassalage they hastened to record their servility to the slave 
power by silencing, as they believed forever, the voice and the 
vote of the black man in the councils of the State. They 
thought it safe to do this. The victims were the few, the poor, 
and the powerless. It was in vain that Stevens and those 
who felt with him protested against the shame and the wrong. 
The deed was done. Tliousands of American citizens were 
disfranchised ; and that, too, upon the spot where Penn, a 
century and a half before, had founded the purest system of 
self-government the world up to that time had ever witnessed ; 
upon the spot where the fathers of the revolution sixty years 
before had declared that all men are born free and equal, and 
had bound themselv es by the most solemn obligation to write 
that holy sentence u^jon American annals with their blood. 
But when the work of the convention was complete, and the 
organic law came to be signed by the members, he who had 
done so much to make it in other respects what it is, refused 
to give it the sanction of his name, and to this day the consti- 
tution of 1838 remains in the archives of Pennsylvania with 
one vacant seal. 

Yet the man whose name should be there lived to aid in 
abolishing the institution in whose interests Pennsylvania had 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THAUDEUS STEYEN.S. 35 



sacrificed her honor, ami to see, universal suffrage made the 
cardiual principle of American institutions. That missing- 
name Avill be remembered with gratitude when tlie names and 
l)rinciples of those who so degraded their State have long been 
consigned to merited oblivion. Let the future statesmen of 
America learn that it is never safe to do wrong. Retributive 
justice is sometimes slow, but it is always sure. 

The memory of Thaddeus Stevens needs no monument. The 
imprint of his mind is ui)on the history of his country, and is 
more ineffaceable there than would be the image of his body 
upon marble. He was among the first to see that the contest 
into which we were forced in 1861 was war, not mere insur- 
rection to be suppressed in sixty days, and that it nuist end 
in victory upon one side or the other with all its rights and 
disabilities. When that contest was at last over he was among 
the first to see that all civil relations pre-existing between the 
victors and the vanquished had ceased to be, leaving the latter 
wholly without civil government. Brushing away the inge- 
nious sophistries with which a faithless administration sought 
to bewilder the public mind in the interests of a fallen insti- 
tution, he set about the work of reconstructing the conquered 
country in the interests of loyalty, progress, and the rights of 
man. To him more than to any other single individual is 
attributable the fact that eight States of the Union have been 
organized upon the basis of universal suffrage and three more 
are about to be. As long as self-goveremeht shall remain a 
principle dear to the American heart, Thaddeus Stevens will 
be remembered as its great champion. He needs no monu- 
ment, yet Pennsylvania owes a tribute to her departed states- 
man. The time will come, and that speedily, when she will 
purge her organic law of all traces of the unhallowed institu- 
tion, all evidences of her former vassalage. From a human 
stand-point it would seem that Thaddeus Stevens should liave 



36 REMARKS OF MR. ASHLEY ON THE 



witnessed that event ; bnt it snited the purposes of an Inscruta- 
ble Power to decree otherwise. Let his beloved State do for him 
what lie did not live to do for himself. When that day comes 
let the Governor of Pennsylvania, by virtue of a solemn act of 
her legislature, on some day sacred to the cause of humanity, 
in the presence of all that is great and good within her borders, 
take from her .archives the constitution of 1838, and reverently, 
with humiliation for the past and hope for the future, blot out 
forever the discrimination between man and man which God 
never made, and opposite the vacant seal write the name of 
Thaddeus Stevens. Then will be accomplished what he lived 
for. Then will Pennsylvania be worthy to account him among 
the sons she has loved, honored, and mourned. 

I cannot conclude the few remarks I arose to offer better than 
by quoting the language of my deceased colleague himself, in 
this hall, upon the announcement of the death of Mr. i^oell, 
of Missouri, whom he knew and with whom he sym]>atliized : 

Other men more eloquent than be may have been called to the bar ofjuclf^ment, 
but no man ever appeared before that dread tribunal with more Humerous and 
ardent advocates. His advocates were the oppressed of every nation, the 
crushed of the satanic institution of slavery. 

Who would not rather take his chance in the great day of accounts, before 
that Judge who is the acknowledged Father of all men, than the chance of 
ordained liypocrites, miserable wretches who, professing to hold a commission 
from on high, impiously proclaim slavery a divine institution? 



Remarks by Mr. Ashley. 

Mr. Speaker: In the death of Thaddeus Stevens this House 
has lost one of its recognized leaders, and the nation one of 
her most distinguished sons. In his departure we shall miss 
another of the uncompromising heroes of our anti-slaverj^ rev- 
olution. Elijah and Owen Lovejoy are entombed; the one at 
Alton, and the other at Princeton, Illinois. Adams and Pier- 
pont sleep beneatli the soil of their native Massachusetts; 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 37 

Theodore Parker at Florence, in Italy; William Leggett at 
'New Eoclielle, ISTew York; Xathaniel P. Rogers by his native 
Merrimac ; Gamaliel Bailey within the shadow of the national 
Capitol; Ciiddings and Morris and Lewis in Ohio; James G. 
Birney in ISTew Jersey ; David Wilmot and James Mott in 
Pennsylvania ; John Brown at North Elbii, New York ; and 
there are others whose lives were as heroic and beantiful and 
unselfish, whose names I do not now recall. To these nmst 
be added more than 300,000, the fallen heroes and martyrs of 
our liberating- army, who sleep on every national battle-field 
from the heights of Gettysburg to the banks of the Rio Grande. 
Pre-eminent among all this invincible army of heroes, prophets, 
and martyrs is Abraham Lincoln, 

The generous, merciful, and just. 

With this grand army of unselfish patriots, his contempora- 
ries and colaborers, we have laid down to rest all that is mortal 
of our friend in the bosom of his beloved Pennsylvania. 

The benediction of millions followed him to his tomb, and 
to-day in the free home of every black man, and of all men 
who love liberty, there is sincere sorrow and mourning. 

Never again in these council halls will he deliberate with 
the people's representatives, nor awaken the nation from its 
lethargy by his genius and wonderful j)ower. 

The honorable gentleman whom his constituents have 
elected to succeed him on this floor, and those who have pre- 
ceded me, have spoken so fully of his early life, his heroic 
struggles, and his personal history, that I need not add a single 
word. 

Through some of the most eventful years in our history I 
have been intimately associated with him on this floor. During 
all that time, which included the darkest hours in the rmtion's 
life — hours which tested the constancy and courage of men — 
he bore himself with such unquestioned fidelity to the cause 



38 REMARKS OF MR. ASHLEY ON THE 

of liuiiuiii fioedom as to cpinmand even the respect of political 
opponents and the cordial endorsement of all liberty-loving men. 
As we engage in the memorial services of this hour, and 
bear him again in our hearts from this Capitol and the scenes 
of his struggles and wonderful triumphs, let the nation stand 
with uncovered head and its bells peal forth the solemn sound 
of an anthem more appropriate than any words of mine : 

Toll! Toll! Toll! 

All mortal life must end. 
Toll! Toll! Toll! 

Weep for the nation's friend. 
Oh ! the land he loved will miss him, 

Miss him in its hour of need ; 
Mourns the nation for the nation, 

Till its tear-drops inward bleed. 
Let bands ot mourning drape the homestead, 

And the sacred house of prayer ; 
Let mourning folds lay black and heavy 

Ou true bosoms everywhere ! 
Toll! Toll! Toll! 

Never again — no more — 
Comes back to earth the life that goes 

Hence to the Eden shore ! 
Let him rest! it is not often 

That his soul hath known repose. 
Let him rest! — they rest but seldom 

Whose successes challenge foes. 
He was weary, worn with watching, 

His life-crown of power hath pressed 
Oft on temples sadly aching — 

He was weary : let him rest ! 
Toll, bells at the Capitol, 

Bells of the land, toll! 
Sob out your grief with brazen lungs. 

Toll! Toll! Toll! 

Mr. Speaker, though death come never so often, he casts at 
the jjortals of the tomb shadows ever new and mysterious, and 
ever and always liath for the living his admonitions and his 
lessons. 

By the side of the grave we all realize that there are voices 
whispering to us out of the shadowy silence beyond the river. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 39 

In such ail hour we see Avith the natural eye " as through a 
glass, darkly," but we have the promise that if faithful we 
shall see " face to face." As there is no race of men without 
the idea of a God and a future life, so in the presence of death 
it is natural for all to pause and think of the life beyond. 

What is to be the destiny of our friend in " that undis- 
covered country from whose bourne no traveller returns," it is 
wisely not given us to know. Let us hope that he has gone 
up into the presence of the God of nations and of men bearing 
in his hands some of the broken fetters which have fallen from 
the limbs of our 4,000,000 emancipated bondsmen. These 
shall testify of his fidelity to justice and to his love of the 
liuman race. 

In that great day when the secrets of all hearts shall be 
I'evealed, I trust it may be said to him by the Father of alt, 
" Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." And that it will be 
said I may without presumption hope, for whatever may be 
the theories of men, whatever our hope for ourselves or for 
others in the life which never dies, let us trust that better than 
all our faiths, and more comprehensive than our grandest con- 
ceptions, an all-wise Creator has ordained a plan as broad as 
the universe, and as just as it is infinite, which will compensate 
in the future life every soul which has struggled and suffered 
for mankind in this. 

Mr. Speaker, there are moments in the experiences of all 
when we cannot convey to other hearts the emotions of our 
own. To me such a moment is the present. So many remi- 
niscences are crowding upon me, and so many wonderful 
scenes in which our departed friend was an actor are passing 
as a panorama before me, that I feel how short I should come 
of doing them or him justice were I to dwell upon them. l»Io 
man who loves his country and passed through those scenes 



40 REMARKS OF MR. ASHLEY ON THE 



ill these halls can ever forget tlieiii. AVlien I first entered 
tliis House, ten years ago, Mr. Stevens was one of the first to 
take me by the hand and welcome me. From that day until 
the day of his death he was luj- friend, and often my 
adviser and counsellor. However often I may have differed 
with him — as I often did — there was one question about 
wliich we never differed : the question of the necessity of the 
immediate and unconditional abolition of slavery. Of the 
Ijracticability and justice of destroying slavery he never 
doubted. I am thankful that he was spared to witness tlie 
end of that indescribable villainy. I rejoice to know that as 
the gates of the Eternal World opened up before him he was 
permitted to look back upon the land he loved and nowhere 
behold the footprints of a single slave. Because of his unwa- 
vering fidelity to the poor bondsmen, who, in the presence of 
a nation of oppressors, were manacled and powerless and 
dumb, I came to venerate him; and because I venerated him 
I come to-day to cast a garland upon his tomb. In this self- 
ish world there is nothing which so strongly enlists my sym- 
pathies and so much commands my admiration as a heroic 
and unselfish life spent in the interests of mankind. To me 
it is the most touching and beautiful of all human struggles. 

In espousing the cause of the slave, more than foity years 
ago, Mr. Stevens voluntarily accepted social and i)olitical 
ostracism, and patiently endured the persecutions of ignorant 
and maddened men, for whose highest good he was laboring. 
He did this without fee or hope of political reward, simply 
because he believed it to be right ; and because he was right 
we shall some day see the chihlren of the men who stoned 
him gladly join hands with the liberated slave in bearing 
back the stones, in the shape of blocks of whitest marble, 
with which to build his juonument. 

1 do not assume to write his epitaph., In a speech deliv- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 41 



ered in this House January 13, 1805, lio said, (I read from 
volume 54 of the Globe, page 2GG :) 

I will be satisfied if my epitaph shall be written thus: " Here lies one 
who never rose to any eminence, and who only courted the low ambition 
to have it said that he had striven to ameliorate the condition of the poor, 
the lowly, the downtrodden of every race and language and color." 

Tlie gTand blows wliicli lie struck in his great battle for 
liberty and justice will long survive him and leave their 
impress upon all lands, strengthening the ])uri)Ose of tlie toil- 
ing and struggling millions of earth. His successful life- 
battle should teach us the value and self-sustaining power of 
a life consecrated to the best iuterests of his country and his 
fellow- men. 

In this impressive hour, while reviewing his heroic and 
unselfish acts, let us renew our vows of fidelity to the great 
principles which he so long, so ably, and so faithfully main- 
tained. Let us here, and now, pledge our lives anew to the 
cause of human liberty and human progress, resolving that 
no obstacle nor selfish interest shall cause us to falter, so that 
when we descend to the tomb the benedictions of mankind 
shall bless us, as they now bless him for whom we mourn, 
and it shall be said of us as it is now said of him : 

He hath not lived in vain. 

After a long and stormy battle, with a record which the 
friends of freedom will ever cherish, full of years and crowned 
with honors, he — 

" Has gone from this strange world of ours, 
No more to gather its thorns with its flowers ; 
No more to linger where sunbeams must fade; 
Where, on all beauty, death's fingers are laid. 
Weary with mingling life's bitter and sweet; 
Weary with parting and never to meet. 
Weary with sowing and never to reap ; 
Weary with labor and welcoming sleep. 
In Christ may he rest," from sorrow and sin 
Happy, where earth's conflicts enter not in. 



42 REMARKS OF MR. MILLER ON THE 



Remarlfi by Mr. Miller. 

Mr. Speaker: During the recess of CongTess my veuerjible 
colleague, Hon. TLaddeus Stevens, of the ninth district, passed 
from the turmoils of life to the peace and quiet of the tomb. 
He was i)'irticipating with us in legislation when we adjourned 
on the 27th of July last, and althougli he was enfeebled in 
bodily health, I joined with many others in an earnest hope 
that he wonld be spared to meet with us when we again 
assembled here for the transaction of business. The realiza- 
tion of that hope has not been vouchsafed to us. On the 12th 
of August last, at one o'clock a. m., at his temijorary residence 
within a short distance from the Capitol, he died. 

Thaddeus Stevens was born on the 4th of April, 1792, in the 
town of Danville, Caledonia county, Vermont. The pecuniary 
circumstances of his parents being limited, they were unable 
to furnish means for his education. Animated with a purpose 
to succeed, through his own perseverance and energy he was 
successful in acquiring a liberal education. Upon the com- 
pletion of his collegiate course he bid adieu to his native State 
and home, and in the year ISl-t, at the age of 22, reached the 
borough of York, Pennsylvania. Teaching school for a live- 
lihood, and studying law in the spare hours that intervened, 
he gradually prepared himself for the stern intellectual con- 
flicts of his after life. He was admitted to the bar in Adams 
county, and soon rose to the head of his profession. 

His oratorical i^owers, general information, and keenness 
of wit gained for him a State- wide celebrity. As an advocate 
he was quick and powerful. Laying hold of the strong points 
in a cause, he presented them in a succinct and comprehensive 
manner. A large and lucrative professional practice flowed in 
upon him, an<l almost at the outset he displayed that charity 
and generosity of his nature which distinguished his entire 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 43 

life. He was alway-s an ardent friend of public improvement 
and universal education, a bitter opi)onent to human slavery 
and ojipression. In 1833 lie became a candidate for the State 
legislature, and Avas elected and re-elected almost without 
opposition up to 1830, when he was chosen a member of the 
convention to revise the constitution of the State, During 
his services in the legislature and constitutional convention 
the attention of the country was attracted to his peculiar oi)in- 
ions, capacities, and character. With a cultured mind, formi- 
dable in debate and fearless in expression, he immediately 
became a leader and foremost in every movement that con- 
templated the improvement of the people and of his adopted 
State. In the convention for the amendment of the State 
constitution he was a violent opponent to the insertion of the 
word " white" as a qualification of voters, and opened upon its 
advocates all the invective of his ardent nature. But the 
crowning glory of his life is the noble disinterestedness, the 
manly courage, and the indomitable will displayed and exer- 
cised in the advocacy of the common-school system of Penn- 
sylvania. To his tireless eftbrts are the people of his adopted 
State indebted for the incalculable blessing of free schools. 
Seconded in his efforts by the generous assistance of Governor 
George Wolf, he succeeded in having the school law passed, 
and when ignorance and prejudice sought and urged its rejieal 
he again stood up in its defence. In a speech which abashed 
his opponents, and which the young of to-day still read with 
enthusiasm, he portrayed in a glowing light the grandeur of 
the system, and the importance of mental culture in order to 
sustain a republican form of government. To-day its benefits 
are seen and acknowledged. To-day the ostentatious rich and 
the humble poor drink at its fountain. To-day, standing by 
the tomb of its origiimtor, thousands pay tribute to his memory 
and worth. 



44 REMARKS OF MR. MILLER ON THE 



Mr. Stevens was prominent iu the administration of Gov- 
ernor Kitner, and by him appointed canal commissioner. He 
snbsequeiitly realized that his undivided attention to politics 
liad caused liim to neglect his private att'airs, aiul esiiecially 
his large furnace in Adams county. He found himself involved 
in debts, said to exceed $200,000, caused mainly by his partner 
in the iron business. His ardent desire was to liipiidate that 
indebtedness. The i^ractice of the law at the Ciettysburg bar 
offered little prosi>ect for paying so large a sum, consequently 
he concluded to remove to a more extensive field, and finally 
selected Lancaster as his future abode. His extensive legal 
acquirements and superior abilities secured for him a large 
and lucrative practice at his new home, which in a few years 
enabled him to liquidate his entire indebtedness. Standing 
at the head of his profession, his many generous traits, polit- 
ical tact, and superiority won the confidence and respect of 
his fellow-citizens. In 1848 he Avas nominated and elected to 
the 31st Congress, and in 1850 was re-elected to the 32d Con- 
gress. At the expiration of his second term he again devoted 
his attention to the pursuits of his profession. He was after- 
ward elected to the 37th, 3Sth, 39th, and 40th Congresses. 
Being a member of Congress during the most critical period 
of the nation's life, he displayed superior statesmanship and 
unfiinching patriotism. Through all this stormy period his 
voice rang clear and loud, amid the picans of victory and the 
glooms of national disaster, for the triumph of liberty and the 
permanency of the republic. 

Believing in the justness of our cause, fully impressed with 
the importance of our success, he advanced with a majestic 
tread toward the realization of his hopes. He lived to see 
the federal authority vindicated, rebellion crushed, and the 
constitutional eradication of that barbaric institution against 
which for more than half a centurv he waged his grand but 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 45 



merciless crusade. Then, the nation's power vindicated, its 
life rescued, its people freed, and its honor maintained, stand- 
ing in the midst of his intellectual and political triumphs, 
with his fame national, and his name immortal, death inter- 
vened and drew the curtain over the drama of his long and 
eminently- useful life. We shall never forget the meteoric 
displays of his ponderous logic, his burning rhetoric, his with- 
ering sarcasm. They are a part of the history and glory of 
the American Congress. Sleeping in his honored grave in 
his adopted State, resting from earthly care and toils, the mel- 
ody of his grand life still is sounding and rolling like the 
" heavings of the sea." His name, interwoven and com- 
mingled with the philosophy of our most momentous history, 
will flow without interruption down the lapse of ages, the 
accompaniment of the great drama of human progress. His 
example, so potent and talismanic in the furtherance of phi- 
lanthropy, will grow brighter and brighter as time advances 
and bravery is honored. He passed > away with the calm 
composure of an old hero of romance "who had come into the 
world with the birthright of libertj- for the peoijles." He 
died nobly, as he had nobly lived, leaving his example as a 
guiding-star to the world. 

" Fleet foot on the correi. 

Sage counsel in cumber, 
Ked Land in the foray, 

How sound is thy slumber! 
Like the dew on the mountain. 

Like the foam on the river, 
Like the bubble on the fountain. 

Thou art gone, and forever!" 



46 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 



BemarJcs hij Mr. Orth. 

Mr. Speaker : The grave has closed over the earthly re- 
mains of one of freedom's most ardent and eloquent advocates. 
The voice once so familiar in these halls is hushed in death ; 
its sound no longer greets our ears, but its bold and fervid 
enunciations will never be forgotten. 

That heroic devotion to truth and justice, to equality and 
fraternity, we so often admired, and which is exemplified by 
countless acts and incidents extending through years and 
years of an active existence, is a most worthy example for all 
good men. 

The principles which he professed and the Avork which he 
performed, professions and iiractice being in perfect harmony, 
will in all future time and in all nations render the name of 
Stevens a synonym for human liberty. 

Living in an age when opportunities for the accomplish- 
ment of great deeds abounded, he seized upon aiul improved 
these opportunities. His mind grasped the true philosophy 
of events, and his practical common sense molded them into 
forms of enduring usefulness. Living not unto himself, his 
life has not been in vain, aiul the impress of his genius upon 
the age in which he lived will be as permanent as his fame. 

The early history of Thaddeus Stevens is similar to that of 
many of our ablest and most prominent public men. His par- 
ents were in indigent circumstances, and hence in his youth 
he was thrown upon his own resources, and taught those 
lessons of self-reliance which i)roved so valuable to him 
and to his country. He was born in the State of Vermont in 
170-J, and spent the days of his youth and early manhood 
among her people, whose thrift, energy, and frugality, long 
since proverbial, made a lasting ijni)ression upon his nature, 
lie entered the academy of Peacham, and, by teaching during 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 47 



the vacations of school, he ])rocuro(l the means by which he 
was enabled to i)repare himself to enter upon a collegiate 
course of studies at Dartmouth College, where, in due time, he 
graduated with distin(;tion. 

He often referred, with evident gratification, to his aca- 
<lemic days at Peacham, and evinced his attachment for the old 
academy by frequent donations of books to its library, as also 
by a valuable bequest in his last will and testament. Leaving 
his New England home, he selected Pennsylvania as his 
future place of residence, locating temporarily in the town of 
York, where lie engaged in teaching school while prosecuting 
his legal studies. He was admitted to the bar in 1817, and im- 
mediately located in Gettysburg, where he contiimed to prac- 
tice his profession with assiduity and marked success for the 
ensuing twenty-five years. His studious habits, his classic 
education, his attention to business, and his eloquence and 
ability soon placed him and kept him at the head of his pro- 
fession, at a time, too, when he was brought into frequent con- 
tact with some of the best legal talent of the State. His bear- 
ing in the presence of the court and bar was always dignified 
and courteous; his cases were thoroughly digested and under- 
stood, and while he guarded carefully their weak iK)ints he 
readily i^erceived and took advantage of those of his adversary. 
In the examination of witnesses he was most successful, his 
])leasing and insinuating address gaining the confidence of 
the witness and eliciting a truthful recital of the facts, while 
his intimate knowledge of human nature enabled him at a 
glance to detect prevarication or dissinnilation ; and when 
detected he made the witness writhe under his unmerciful 
cross-examination. 

He was invincible in the presentation of his facts, the api)li- 
cation of the law to the testimony, and in the infiuence of his 
eloquence over the hearts and minds of the jurors. 



48 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 

" ^^ 

Milton, OIK' of his favorite authors, says : 
True eloquence I find to be none but serious and hearty love of truth. 

This love of truth was one of the strongest elements in 
the character of Mr. Stevens, and enabled him so successfully 
to carry conviction to his hearers. He never practiced the 
arts of dissimulation, not merely because he was ignorant of 
their uses, but for the reason that his very nature, whose im- 
pulses he followed, led him to deal with perfect frankness and 
candor on every occasion. 

He was eipially candid with friend and foe, and nothing 
could induce him to betray the one or clandestinely injure the 
other. This virtue he jiracticed in the privacy of social life, 
at the bar, in his struggles on the political rostrum, and in the 
discharge of his severer and more exalted duties in the halls 
of legislation, and this, more than anything else, formed and 
increased the attachment of his friends and challenged the 
respect of his enemies. Did I say his enemies ? Justice to 
his memory requires that I should rather use the words "politi- 
cal adversaries," for it is conceded by all who knew him that 
no nmn ever passed through such fierce and embittered con- 
tests, running through an active period of half a century, wltli 
so few personal enemies during his stay on earth, and no ani- 
mosities extending beyond the grave. His love of truth made 
him an earnest man, acting upon the principle that whatever 
was worth doing at all was worth doing well. He never 
espoused a cause until he was satisfied of its merits and justice, 
and then brought to its advocacy all the strength and vigor 
of a richly cultivated intellect. 

The cause of education always received his hearty support. 
To elevate mankind, to imi)rove their moral, intellectual, and 
physical condition ; in a word, to leave the world better than 
he found it, was with him a duty which he never neglected. ' 

At the time of his first election to the legislature of Penu- 



^ 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS.. 49 

sylvaiiia, that State had taken no steps toward the oi-j>aniza- 
tion of a system of general education. The education of her 
chiklren had been left to private or individual enterprise, or to 
the voluntary effort of the people in each particular neiglil)or- 
hood. The utter inefticiency of these spasmodic and limited 
efforts to educate the yonth of the State, or to diffuse intelli- 
gence among- the people, was apparent to all reflecting persons, 
but it belonged to Stevens not only to make the inefficiency 
glaringly manifest, but to propose and carry into effect a 
proper remedy for the evil. He believed with Aristotle : 

That the education of youth ought to form the principal part of the legisla- 
tors' attention cannot be a doubt, since education first molds and afterwards 
sustains the various modes of government. The better and more perfect the 
systems of education the better and more perfect the plan of government it is 
intended to introduce and uphold. In this important object fellow-citizens are 
all equally and deeply concerned ; and as they are all united in one common 
work for one common purpose, their education ought to be regulated by the 
general consent, and not abandoned to the blind decision of chauce or to idle 
caprice. 

The innovator upon immemorial usage is never a welcome 
visitor. He meets witli obstacles at the threshold of his opera- 
tions, and difficidties and imjjediments beset him at every step 
in his progress. 

That education should be universal ; that the indigent orphan 
shoujd have the same opportunity for the acquisition of know- 
ledge with the son of his wealthy neighbor ; that the man ot 
affluence should be taxed to educate the chihl of penury, were 
ideas at that time not only novel, but repugnant to the views 
of a large majority of the people of Pennsylvania, and hence 
the attempt to embody them in the form of legislative enact- 
ment met with stern and general oi^position. 

Mr. Stevens was not the man to be swerved from his pur- 
poses b}' adverse opinions ; he met argument with argument, 
conquered i^rejudice by the presentation of truth, and crushed 
the demagogue with his withering and irresistible sarcasm. 



50 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 

Amid difficulties wliicli might liave appalled more timid men, 
lie entered npon the advocacy of the principle that all children 
are the Avards of the commonwealth, and that it is alike the 
interest aiul the duty of the commonwealth to provide for their 
education. 

The habits and opinions of a century do not readily yield to 
the demands of advancing- ideas, and for years this question 
of universal educatioli was the subject of animated and fre- 
quently of acrimonious discussion. It entered into the politi- 
cal contests of the day, and to such an extent was the oppo. 
sition manifested that the motto "^o free schools" was em- 
blazoned on many banners, and became the shibboleth of par- 
tisan wartare. The contest was of long duration; but in all 
contests with error truth will eventually triumph, and his 
adopted State now justly exults in having, through his instru- 
mentality, one of the best systems of popular education in 
the Union. 

Many of his best friends at the time feared the effect of his 
bold advocacy of so unpopular a measure on his future politi- 
cal prospects ; but this was a consideration which never entered 
his mind, and his course on this question, like all the great 
acts of his life, exhibited the unselfishness of his nature. 

In addressing his constituents at Gettysbui'g, while this 
(piestion was agitating the people, he said: 

I shall feel myself abundantly rewarded for all my efforts in behalf of uni- 
versal education if a single child educated by the commonwealth shall drop a 
tear of g^ratitude on my grave, 

During his residence at Gettysburg an academy or gymna- 
sium was organized by a few of the prominent citizens, and 
Stevens soon conceived the idea of building on this modest 
foundation an institution of more enlarged pretension and of 
much wider usefulness. Through his influence as a member 
of the legislature a charter was obtained changing the gym- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 51 

luisium to "The Pennsylvania College ;"' and what was tlicn 
remarkable, he also secured a donation from the State of an 
amount of money sufficient to erect for the college its ]>rin- 
cipal and most costly edifice. The consideration for this 
munificent grant was the gratuitoiis education hy the col- 
lege of a specified number of indigent young men who might 
from time to time avail themselves of this privilege, and 
the further condition that the German langiiage should con- 
stantly be taught in the institution, which conditions have 
at all times been most faithfully performed. He was promi- 
nently and actively connected with the material and educa- 
tional interests of the college, as a member of the board of 
trustees, from its organization to the time of his death. 

The trustees have recently erected an additional edifice to 
be used in connection with the college, which, in honor of his 
friendshii:) for the institution and the interest he manifested 
in its success, has most appropriately been named "Stevens's 
Hall." 

He was a zealous advocate of free speech, concurring fully 
in the sentiment of Jefferson, that "error of opinion can safely 
be tolerated so long as reason is left free to combat it." 

To him the idea was most j^reposterous that there should be 
any subject so sacred as to forbid examination or debate. 
^Yhatever seeks to avoid scrutiny or shrinks from investiga- 
tion is justly subject to suspicion, and that which cannot bear 
the test of thorough discussion is in its nature inimical to re- 
l)ul)lican institutions. 

I remember an incident, which occurred dimng my school- 
boy days at Gettysburg, at once illustrating his devotion to 
the cause of free speech and his influence over the minds of 
those with whom he was brought in contact. 

In 1837 the anti-slavery question began to be agitated in 
various parts of the country, and Professor P>lanchard, of 



52 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 



Cincinnati, one of the earliest adv^ocates of emancipation, 
visited Gettysburg- for the purpose of delivering a series of 
anti-slavery lectures. The very announcement of his purpose 
created an intense excitement in the community, for Gettys- 
burg is situated within a few miles of the old Mason and 
Dixon's line, and an abolition lectui-er would have been just 
as welcome in Maryland as in the border counties of Penn- 
sylvania. 

The professor called his meeting and challenged discussion. 
The challenge was accepted by two of the most prominent 
citizens of the borough; but at the close of the debate resolu- 
tions were passed deprecating any further agitation on the 
subject, and plainly intimating to the i)rofessor that his pres- 
ence was no longer desirable in that community — a hint which 
in those days was very ge^erally understood. 

Mr. Stevens had been absent on professional business ; but 
on his retiu-n, learning what had been done, another meeting 
was called, and the court-house was soon filled with an angry 
and excited audience. He requested some friend to move a 
reconsideration of the resolutions, and then proceeded to ad- 
dress the meeting. Those who heard his effort on that occa- 
sion will never forget it. His manner was calm, deliberate, 
impressive, and the excited (jrowd listened with earnest atten- 
tion. To listen was to be convinced. Warming gi-adually 
with his subject, he enforced the right of free discussion on 
all subjects with a power and an eloquen(,'e which his audi- 
ence had never heard. The sacred rights of American citi- 
zenship, seciu-ed by constitutional guarantees, were defended 
by a master hand. In turn he used persuasion, entreaty, ar- 
gument, wit, and sarcasm, until finally, turning to his old 
neighboi's aud friends, he appealed to their sense of honor and 
justice, to their individual reputation and the reputation of 
their community, as deeply involved in their contemplated 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 53 

proceedings ; and when he took his seat the resohitions, which 
had been previously adopted withont a dissenting- voice, found 
no one bokl enough to advocate their passage. On the eon- 
trary, a new set of resohitions were introduced and jtasscd 
witli singuhir unanimity, aftirming the right of free tliscus 
sion, and inviting" this early anti-slavery missionary to con- 
tinue his labors. 

The triumph was complete, not oidy for ]\rr. Stevens, bat, 
what was infinitely more gratifying to him, it was a triumph 
of reason over prejudice; and, I need hardly add, it was the 
last attempt to apply the "slaveholder's gag" in that portion 
of our country. 

He was the firm friend of the ©impressed and the implacable 
enemy of the oppressor. Like the great Wesley before him, 
he regarded the institution of American slavery as "the sum 
of all villanies," and suffered no occasion to pass unimproved 
when in his power to expose its monstrosity or destroy its 
vitality. 

He was ever ready "to proclaim liberty throughout the land 
and unto all the inhabitants thereof;" and when the institu- 
tion began to crumble and fall, amid the crackling flames of 
that rebellion which it had instigated, he felt like exclaiming, 
with one of old : 

Lord, now lettest thou thy servaut depart iu peace, according to thy word, fur 
mine eyes have seen thy salvation. 

While practicing his profession at Gettysburg, the cases of 
fugitive slaves were quite lumierous, and where arrests were 
made which came to his knowledge, he invariably volunteered 
his services to defend the alleged fugitive; and it is among 
the reminiscences of the neighborhood that he seldom if ever 
failed to secure the freedom of his clients. 

On one occasion, while journeying to Baltimore for the pur- 
pose of replenishing his law library, he stopped for the night 



54 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 

at a hotel in Maryland, kei)t by a man with whom he was well 
acquainted. Soon after his arrival he discovered quite a com- 
motion among" the servants at the hotel, and a w^oman in tears 
approached him and implored his assistance to prevent the 
contemplated sale of her husband, who was a slave. On in- 
quiring who and where her husband was, she replied, "Why, 
Massa Stevens, he is the boy who took your horse to the sta- 
ble." Stevens knew the "boy," and at once went to his owner 
and expostulated with him in reference to his sale, and at 
length otfered to pay him $150, half the price, if he would 
restore him to liberty. The landlord was inexorable, and Ste- 
vens, knowing the relations between the slave and his master, 

replied, "Mr. , are you not ashamed to sell your own tlesh 

and blood ?" This stinging appeal only brought forth the 
response, " I must have money, and John is cheap at $300." 

Prompted by his generous uatm^e Stevejis purchased and 
manumitted "John," and then retraced his steps to Gettys- 
burg, without completing his journey to Baltimore. At that 
time $300 was a large sum of money for one who had been 
but a few years at the bar, and he postponed the replenish- 
ing of his law library to a more convenient season. 

The word charity in its broadest sense fails to express the 
boundless benevolence of his heart. He was never so happy 
as on those occasions when he could assist the suffering, 
relieve the distressed, and comfort the needy. 

No one ever applied to him for assistance and was refused. 
While struggling with poverty himself he gave the Avidow's 
mite, and when afterward success attended him his bounties 
were increased in corresponding ratios. He was not only " a 
cheerful giver," but in these matters he was not willing that 
the right hand should know what the left hand had done. He 
X)referred that his charities should descend quietly as the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 55 



dews of heaven, and, like the summer breeze, be felt but not 
seen. 

Like Cornelius, he "gave much alms to the people;" in 
fact, he was the almoner of Gettysburg durino- his long resi- 
dence there, with this wide difference, that he made distribu- 
tion only of his own means, and never limited his benefac- 
tions to the tenth of his income. 

^Tien lurking treason, Avhich had been niu'sed for years in 
our country by men high in Itivor with the people and high in 
official station, culminated in civil war, Stevens was a most 
prominent and influential member of this House. His whole 
life had witnessed his devotion to the country, to those funda- 
mental principles proclaimed in the Declaration of Independ- 
ence, and his faith in their ultimate incorporation into the 
national Constitution. 

The first hostile gun of the rebellion convinced him that 
the accursed institution of slavery would be overthrown, that 
the Union would siu-^ive the shock of battles, and that the 
conflict would evolve a i>urer republicanism and an advanced 
spirit of humanity. 

His efforts in and out of Congress were devoted to a vigor- 
ous prosecution of the war, to devising ways and means for 
such prosecution, and to keep the ])ublic mind firmly fixed 
upon the true natm^e of the assault upon the Union, and its 
defence, and thus to have it prejiared to accept those truths 
which he foresaw^ would inevitably result from a victory for 
the Union. 

The patient, self-sacrificing endurance of oui' people and 
the valor of our soldiers at length crushed the rebellion, and 
re-established, so far as military i)ower coidd re-establish, the 
authority of the national government. With the cessation of 
liostilities came questions of civil polity, as important as they 
were novel, requiring solution and permanent adjustment. 



56 REMARKS OF MR. ORTH ON THE 



The public niind was unsettled; contlictiiig' opinions most 
naturally forced tliemselves to the surface, while political 
theories, formed on the narrow basis of old passions and pre- 
judices, claimed public attention. Here was a field for the 
statesman, and Stevens entered it with that self-reliance 
with which a consciousness of his own power and the strength 
of his political convictions invested him. Others doubted 
and hesitated, but to him the future was as unclouded and as 
certain as the past. He was no revolutionist, but, j)enetrat- 
ing- through the gloom of battles and the uncertainties which 
troubled most minds, he perceived the end from the begin- 
ning, and when the end came he was prepared to meet its 
demands and its responsibilities. 

The apparently popular heresy that the States in rebellion 
had not by that act changed their " proper practical rela- 
tions" to the Union, and hence were at once restored to their 
former position, was soon dissipated by the sturdy blows it 
received under his leadership. 

With the abandonment of this theory the true policy to be 
I)ursued toward the States and people lately in rebellion was 
easily ascertained, and the emphatic endorsement of that 
XJolicy by the voice of the nation, tog'ether with the gradual 
accomplishment of its purj)oses, have demonstrated alike its 
wisdom and its justice. 

He is gone. He has tinished his course on earth, but the 
great w^ork to which he devoted so many hours of patient 
thought and honest toil is not yet finished. The high aim of 
his life, that to which he brought all the energies of his nature, 
which enlisted the Avarm sympathies of his noble soul and en- 
,gaged the powers of his vigorous intellect, was to have his 
country free and all her people equal, to have a land 

"Where manhood reigns alone, 
And every citizen is king." 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. f)! 



Freedom lias been obtained, but freedom has not yet been 
secured, and will not be secured until all our people shall have 
the full enjoyment of perfect equality by the law and before 
the law. Freedom without secured ecpiality of rights is a de 
lusionand a snare; and although his countrymen have in his 
memory and in his deeds a rich legacy which they will always 
cherish with pride and with honor, yet with this legacy is 
coupled a responsibility, and that is to proceed with the work 
in which he was so zealously engaged, to complete the struc- 
ture in the spirit of its master workman. So complete it that 
from foundation-stone to turret, in all its parts and designs, 
there shall be no fault and no blemish ; that the eye of the 
critic can discover no defects, and the heart of the patriot 
desire no change. So complete it that when finished it will 
meet with the approbation of all good men and the approval 
of a just God. 

He is gone. That frail tenement of clay so lately moving 
among us is mingling with its kindred dust, but the name and 
fame of Thaddeus Stevens will never die. 

In all the coming years of time, so long as patriotism has a 
votary and freedom an advocate, his name will be lisped and 
his fame will be cherished by the countless millions of the 
future, and while his countrymen linger around his consecrated 
grave their aspirations will ascend to Heaven that a kind 
Providence who rules over the destinies of nations may grant 
to our beloved country many more such men. 



Eenuohs by Mr. Koontz. 

Mr. Speaker : The ordinary business of the day is suspended, 
that the House of Kepresentatives may pay its tribute of 
respect to the memory of its de])arted leader. Since the last 
session of this Congress Hon. Thaddeus Stevens, representa- 



58 REMARKS OF MR. KOOXTZ OX THE 

tive from tlie iiiutli congressional district of Pennsylvania, 
ripe ill yo;irs and in wisdom, and honored with the confidence 
and love of his fellow-countrymen, has passed from time into 
eternity. No word in commendation of his distinguished ser- 
vices to the country or in praise of his great talents is needed 
in this i)resence, where he was so well knoAvn ; nor are the eulo- 
gies that are pronounced here on this occasion necessary to 
convej' to the nation a correct idea of the characteristics of 
the deceased. A j^rominent actor in the mighty events which 
have transpired within the last eight years, he stands out in 
marked distinctness before a people who have watched Avith 
intense pleasm-e his de\ otion to country, with unbounded ad- 
miration the exhibition of his commanding talents, and who 
have on irequent occasions been swayed by his resistless, biu:n- 
ing elotiuence. 

But if the tear of sorrow is shed for and the word of tribute 
spoken of the less distinguished of earth who have passed 
from the stage of life, with how much more sorrow should we 
mourn those who are numbered among the nation's dead! 
Wlien they who have achieved distinction in Avar, statesman- 
shii), oratory, poetry, science, or philosophy have " shufded oft' 
this mortal coil," the rivalries that were begotten in the busy 
arena of life are remembered no longer, the i^eculiarities of 
character that excited hostility in the breasts of others are 
forgotten, and a generous people remember only the ability 
and virtue of the deceased and treasure them as evidence of 
the nation's advancement in civilization, and as the enduring 
monuments of her own greatness and glory. The many years 
of distinguished public service of the deceased, his skill as a 
Xiarliamentarian, his recognized ability as a leader, and the 
powerful influence he wielded in the councils of the nation 
gave him such prominence in the eyes of the American people 
that since his death they remember him not only as the leader 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 59 

of a great party, but as a great American statesman, whose 
name will be inscribed on the historic page along- with those 
whom the nation delights to honor. 

Of the prominent men of this generation perhaps none have 
greater claims to i^ublic gratitude than Mr. Stevens. In Penn- 
sylvania his name will ever be associated with the beneficent 
system of common schools, the establishment of which was 
owing to his ability, perseverance, and energy. The humblest 
lad in the rudest cabin within the limits of the State will live 
to bless the memory of Thaddeus Stevens, for having ])laced 
within his reach the means of an education. If, according to 
the distinguished historian, Macaulay, the gift of Athens to 
mankind of intellectual knowledge constitutes her chief glory, 
and will perpetuate her memory, even in the decay of her lan- 
guage and the degeneracy of her people, to the remotest pos- 
terity, amid the rise and fall of kingdoms and empires, may it 
not truthfully be said that the j)eople of Pennsylvania owe a 
debt of gratitude to Mr. Stevens for this great gift to her sons, 
which will exist as long as her mountains stand, and that his 
memory will be preserved by them while their language 
remains to speak his praises ? 

But, passing bejond the confines of his adoi)ted State, we 
find that his name is widely known throughout the country, 
and that by his public course he has earned a nation's grati- 
tude. A gigantic civil war threatened the life of the nation 
and its public men were put to the severest test. Mr. Stevens 
at once rose into marked prominence by his determined and 
liowerful hostility to the rebellion, its aiders and abettors; and 
his opposition, after its overthrow, to all measures looking to 
the political ascendency in the government of those lately in 
arms to destroy it, made him the idol of the loyal millions of 
the country. Other men might be misled either by a mistaken 
notion of what was due to traitors, or a false philanthropy, or 



60 REMARKS OF MR. KOONTZ ON THE 

wicked ambition, or desire for party predominance, but there 
Avas an al)iding faith in the loyal people of the country that in 
Thaddeus Stevens there was "no variableness or shadow of 
turning," and that in all the mutations of time and tergiversa- 
tions of men, he would be true to the cause for which their 
sons and brothers had fallen. His career to its close A^lndi- 
cated fully the popular confidence in his fidelity to principle. 

In foreign governments the noble men who are inaugurating 
movements looking to the disenthralment of the masses from 
kingly aud aristocratic rule, lament his death, and in this hour 
of sadness and sorrow we have their deepest sympathy. There 
is always a strong tie between men of enlarged minds and com 
l)rehensive intellects, although there may be wide differences 
of opinion between them as to the best mode of advancing the 
interests of society and the promotion of the Avelfare and hap- 
piness of mankind; but how much stronger the tie that binds 
the men who are moving together in the great cause of hu- 
manity! The champions of liberal principles in every clime 
realize that one of their noble baud is no more, and not only a 
State and nation, but oppressed humanity everywhere, deplore 
the death of the great advocate of human rights. 

But his memory viiW be fondly cherished by that large body 
of people so recently liberated from human slavery. An early 
opponent of that institution, he battled against it with all the 
power of his gigantic intellect, until the last shackle of the last 
slave was broken, and this day he is revered by them next 
only to the immortal Lincoln. His name is a household word 
in the humble cabins of four million people whom he has helped 
u]) from the degrading condition of bondage into the blessed 
light of freedom, and will be inseparably linked with that great 
act of national justice by which the emancipation of a race 
from servitude was achieved. 

As a private citizen he was kind and generous, and always 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 61 

ready to lend a helping hand to the needy and distressed. In 
public life he was remarkably candid and unreserved in ex- 
pression of opinion. There was as little danger of mistaking 
his views on any subject of public interest as that his antago- 
nists would not feel the strength of his powerful intellect in 
enforcing them. He has been aptly styled the great Commoner 
of the United States. In many respects he was like the great 
Commoner of England. Like him he was bold and fearless 
in the advocacy of the measures he espoused. Like the elder 
Pitt he was not sordid. His worst enemy could not say of 
him that he enriched himself at the expense of the public. 
Like him he carried his measures often by his terrible ear- 
nestness, often by his withering sarcasm and fiery invective. 
Like him he rose into great and commanding influence in the 
nation, and successfully carried out the measure he had so 
dauntlessly advocated. 

But, sir, time does not permit me to extend these remarks. 
A great man has fallen. This hall will no longer resound with 
his eloquence or the nation be thrilled with his patriotic ut- 
terances, but in the ages to come the heart of the patriot and 
lover of humanity will swell with joy and gratitude at the 
mention of the name of Thaddeus Stevens. 



RemarJx.s hi) Mr. Donnelly. 

Mr. Speaker : As a representative of one of the new 
Commonwealths of the great West, I would add a few Avords 
to the tributes which have already been paid to tlie memory 
of Mr. Stevens. The West owed him much. Although born 
among the mountains of Yernu)nt, and representing here an 
inland district of Penusjlvania, his heart was as broad and 

9 

liberal as his brain, and embraced in its great scope e\ery 
portion of the continent. His sympathies were especially 



62 REMAEKS OF MR. DONNELLY ON THE 



active in belialf of those new communities whose destiny 
has been to subdue the Aviklerness and spread in constantly 
widening circles the domain of society and civilization. It 
is especially fitting, therefore, that the West should add to 
the wreaths which already adorn his bier. 

In every aspect in which we consider him Mr. Stevens 
was a great man. 

No one who ever knew him could doubt the prodigious force 
and vigor of his intellect. It seemed to embrace all the diver- 
sified subjects of legislation incident to a great country and 
a high degree of civilization. While there might be here and 
there a member who, upon some special topic, surpassed him, 
there was no man in Congress whoAvas so thoroughly convers- 
ant with such a multitude of subjects. A singularly retentive 
memory held ever ready for use the experience and the learn- 
ing acquired during a long and industrious life. The move- 
ments of his mind were as original and peculiar as they were 
rapid and accurate. His jiower in debate was unequalled. 
His replies were such as could not be anticipated. He flashed 
back upon his opponent from some new stand-point, or with 
some quaint conceit that astonished while it confused him. 
His irony was terrible ; it was withering; it denuded sophistry 
ro the l)ones. It left no room for reply. The adroitness ac- 
(piired during long practice at the bar was everywhere mani 
fested in his conduct of debate. He knew when to strike and 
when to loosen his hold, and when to yield the non-essentials 
to save the essentials, but he never forsook his pur^iose. 

An intellect of this nature, accomj)anied by a degree of 
l)hysical vigor Avhich carried the vivacity of youth and the 
endurance of manhood far into the domain of old age, Avould 
have made Mr. Stevens a marked man in any pasition in 
life and in any age of the Avorld. But behind this intellect 
there was a character still more remarkable. Behind this 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 63 

brain-power there lay a Anil-power wliieli lias rarely been 
ecpialled among' the sons of men ; an intensity of purpose whieli 
no obstacle eoukl arrest, no defeat daunt, and a determination 
of cliaracter which brightened with every encounter and rose 
freshened from every overthrow. Nothing could stand in the 
path of his purpose. That grim face m-ver turned aside to 
catch the fickle murmurs of jioitular ai)plause. Public opinion 
had no terrors for him. It should be written over his tomb 
that "he never played the demagogue." He never stepped 
down upon the lower plane of popular error, but at all times 
and on all occasious he dared to do right, looking Heaven in 
the face and fearing no man. He never flattered the people ; 
he never attempted to deceive them; he never "paltered ^nth 
them in a double sense f he never courted and encouraged their 
errors. On the contrary, on all occasions he attacked their 
sins, he assailed their prejudices, he outraged all their bigot- 
ries; and when they turned upon him and attacked him he 
marched straight forward, like Gulliver wading through the 
fleets of the Lilliputians, dragging his enemies after him into 
the great harbor of truth. 

But all his intellect and character were secondaiy to the 
principles which underlaid them. These were, indeed, great 
and noble. 

Nature had given Mr. Stevens a generous heart. He was 
emi^hatically the friend of man. He seemed to feel that every 
wrong inflicted upon the human race was a blow struck at 
liiiuself. He could not understand that a wrong could have 
any rights. He denied the power of time to sanctify injustice. 
The dust of antiquity could not screen from his indignant 
glance the horrible proportions of cruelty. He seemed to feel 
that there should be noijeace in this world luitil every wrong- 
was righted, and he believed that the true end of government 
was to right all the wi'ongs men suffer. He was the embodied 



64 REMARKS OF MR. DONNELLY ON THE 

spirit of revolution. In the great French struggle his oratory 
would have outblazed Mirabeau. He would have exulted in the 
glorious work of tearing to shreds monarchy and aristocracy, 
and lifting to their feet the poor, degraded, oppressed peas- 
antry of France. 

He would admit no compromise with wrong. It could nei- 
ther smile nor frown, nor coax nor bully him into submission. 
Even the dark shadow of assassination could not turn him a 
hair-breadth from his path. He brought the spirit of John 
Brown into the work of the statesman. He led the assault 
against an embattled host of wrongs and errors, and under 
the providence of God they went down before him and left the 
field clear almost to the horizon. All honor in the day of peace 
to the gallant leader whose ringing voice never faltered amid 
all the surging uncertainties of the terrible struggle. 

Against slavery as the mighty embodiment of all human 
wrongs Mr. Stevens threw the force of his intellect and char- 
acter from the very first. He felt with Mr. Lincoln that " if 
slavery was not -sNTong nothing was wrong.*' Its presence 
under the American flag he regarded as an outragfc; it polluted 
the very air; it cried out with a million tongues to heaven ; 
no fact, no incident connected with it, but was a perpetual 
appeal to the human heart. Mr. Stevens was from the first 
an uncompromising abolitionist — not yesterday alone, but 
thirty, forty, fifty years ago, when slavery was a sacred thing', 
and its oj^ponents were ranked among the criminals of the 
land. 

Such sentiments for a long time excluded him from public 
life. At length came the great revolution. The blind wrong 
had dragged down ui)on itself the pillars of the temple. The 
curtain rose upon the grandest drama of the world; and the 
grim, iron-willed old man stepped forward to do his appointed 
work. His was the most striking figure of all the illustrious 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 65 

group g-atlierecl in that great sceue. Ho liad no doubt;^ — no 
scruples ; lie did not weep over his opportunities ; he exulted 
in them. He seized axe and brand and set himself to work to 
burn and heAv out the giant wrong of American society, and 
the rigid lips never relaxed Avhile he thought a single root or 
branch retained vitality. It was his privilege to live until tlie 
work of legislation was completed and the institutions of the 
country placed on the broad basis which his heart and judg- 
ment approved. His dying ears heard only the groAvlings of 
the turbid and bloody waves of rebellion as they settled and 
subsided into peace forever. 

Mr. Stevens regarded his labors in behalf of popular edu- 
cation as the crowning glory of his life. He was right. Here 
his enlarged pliilanthroi)y and his far-reaching statesmanship 
had fullest scope. The school-houses of Pennsylvania are his 
noblest monument. Innumerable generations yet unborn will, 
in that illustrious Commonwealth, preserve his name in per- 
petual remembrance as their iirst and greatest benefactor. 

A life so complete does not ask our tears. Here is room only 
for pride and admiration, and gratitude to God that in the 
hour of our deadly need he raised uj) such a man to lead our 
national councils, and to infuse into a wavering nation his own 
indomitable spirit and his own magnificent love of right and 
horror of injustice. He passes into history, and the love of a 
great people gathers around and accompanies and hallows 
him. It can be justly said of him " he was the friend of man." 
The world holds no prouder eulogy. 



Remarlis by Mr. Calce. 

Mr. Speaker: The public man who woiks for fame rarely 
achieves it. If he does, he soon finds it a perishing uncertainty. 
After all, posterity is an inexorable judge, and no matter how 
5 



6G REMARKS OF MR. CAKE ON THE 

the paid eulogist or the partial historian exaggerates what is 
good or palliates what is bad, time's ultimate verdict is always 
discrimiuatiug and just. 

Thaddeus Steveus was a fine illustration of this theory. No 
statesman in any age so often took issue with what is called 
puldic opinion, but what might be better styled public preju- 
dice. Emigrating to Pennsylvania more than a half a century 
ago from New England, that normal school of the continent, 
and settling down among the retrogressive German population 
on the borders of a slave State, and sharing much of the intol- 
erance of slavery, the very first thing he did was to take up 
arms for education and freedom. These were the pole stars of 
all his politics, and in following them he encountered more 
obstacles than ever beset the pathway of a public man. There 
is something sublime in his struggle with these obstacles. 
Undismayed he pursued the bitter path; undaunted he met 
the organized foe. No expediency, no compromise, no party 
turned him aside from his grand objective point. His efforts 
for universal education were crowned with victory earlier than 
his efforts against slavery. 

But he was, if possible, more intense in his hostility to 
slavery than in his championship of education. Here he was 
the foremost teacher of the middle States. With a heroism 
that outlived censure and defied majorities, he maintained the 
unequal fightthrough more than ageneration. Caring nothing 
for himself and nothing for party, if he could not mold the latter 
according to his principles, he aroused the most violent enmi- 
ties and dared the most formidable combinations. If freedom 
won he was content; to secure that he was always ready to 
sacrifice everything else. 

And now, Mr. Speaker, as we look back over the past eight 
years, is there one Eepublican who will not admit 'that if we 
had followed his lead from the first, much of the resulting 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. G7 

treachery, blooclslied, and death would have been avoided? 
We have reached the remedy at last ; and what is that which 
gives us safety, which secures the rights of millions yet unborn, 
Init that great remedy of Thaddeus Stevens : justice, equality, 
and freedom to all men, irrespective of race, color, or nativity ? 
Our great leader did not work for fame. He did not play 
the courtier ; he did not deal in the currency of compromise ; 
he did not flatter the people ; he never was a beggar for their 
votes. And yet, behold ! He is remembered, and honored in 
his remembrance, by friend and foe. Look at this house to- 
day. Eecall the loud acclaim of sorrow that mourned his 
death while it conceded his matchless attributes, and tell me, 
sir, if this is not genuine fame, that fame resulting from a bold, 
manly, rugged, and unselfish career, unsought, uutoiled for, 
yet fi-eely tendered by a proud and grateful country, without 
distinction of party, sect, or creed ? 

Sir, it is not often that one man can do so much for any 
people as Thaddeus Stevens has done. But for him Pennsyl- 
vania would have been, perhaps, the last of the old free States 
to establish an educational system based upon equal taxation. 
But for his examiile our seminaries of learning would have 
been inferior and few. Half a million young men and women 
within our borders are this day chiefly indebted to him for 
the blessings of a sound education. I freely acknowledge my 
own indebtedness. When he delivered his great speech in the 
house of representatives of Pennsylvania, in 1835, 1 was seven 
years old. The institutions that sprang into existence under 
the inspiration of that great eflbrt proved to be my opportu- 
nity, and I shall never cease to bear testimony to the value 
of his work on that occasion. 

Eeared in another political party, I never failed to cherish 
and honor his name ; and when I entered the printing oftice 
in my thirteenth year, found myself equipped for a rapid and 



68 REMARKS OF MR. CAKE ON THE 

thorough imderstanding- of the mysteries of that art of all 
arts. Later in life, when the war dissolved old party preju- 
dices, and when, a denioeratic journalist, I found that as one 
of the advocates of Judge Douglas for President the honest 
h)gic of my convictions placed me in association with the 
republican party, it was a natural progress for me to become 
one of the followers of Thaddeus Stevens, and to oppose 
slavery as I had opposed all the antagonism of the school law. 

Coming into this House at the close of the war, in which I 
did but my duty as a soldier and citizen, I looked up to him 
as my leader and my friend. 1 had never met him till I saw- 
him on this floor -, here, upon every occasion I found him 
a kind, intelligent, and generous mentor. Once, for reasons 
that I deemed conclusive to my mind, I voted against an 
appropriation to one of the colleges in this District. It 
was very nearly lost, when Mr. Stevens asked me to change 
my vote, saying that he would give me his reasons for the 
request after the bill was disposed of. Upon the announce- 
ment of the result he turned to me and said: "Young man, 
let me implore you in all your after life never to oppose any 
measure for the education of the people. Follow this ad\ice 
and you will never regTet it." 

Mr. Speaker, it is never becoming to cover the dead with 
unmerited eulogy, and in speaking these honest words of 
Thaddeus Stevens I am not trying to make him a i>erfect 
character. Like all strong men, he had his faults, and he 
neither denied nor defended them ; but in the sterling traits 
of manhood he was a conspicuous example. The eloquent 
gentlemen who have preceded me have told you how brave he 
was in ])ublic life, how true to his convictions, how fearless in 
his support of all measures intended to elevate the people and 
to develop the resources of the country. 

Not to-day, but in the time to come, will Thaddeus Stevens 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. fi9 

be fally appreciated. His vrliole life was devoted to the 
cause of humanity, and he lived to see the fruition of his 
hopes in the most comi^lete victory over the enemies of educa- 
tion in Pennsylvania and of freedom throughout our land. 
Congratulating himself upon his two great victories, he could 
peacefully fold his arms in the sleep that knows no waking 
upon earth, secure in the belief that he had accomplished a 
great work, and that those who prolit by his life will revere 
his memory forever. The men and women who have been and 
are yet to be educated in the common schools of Pennsylvania, 
and the bond who have been made free, to free Avhom he gave 
the labor of his best days, are the beneficiaries of his noble 
aiid self-sacrificing life. 

That which Avill stand to his honor as long as his record as 
a statesman are these proofs of his love for his fellow-men. 
'No great benevolence ever appealed to him in vain. No poor 
man struggling with adversity, no young man who sought his 
aid in the beginning of his career, no penitent rebel, impov- 
erished by the war, ever asked Thaddeus Stevens in vain for 
assistance. What is this but a religious example ? How 
much better, Mr. Speaker, than the hollow profession which 
contents itself with words, and never ripens into glorious 
deeds ! Leigh Hunt's beautiful allegory has often been applied 
to others, but it seems to have been written for Thaddeus 
Stevens. Bear with me as I read it to you, and tell me if it 
l)e not a faithful picture of the great mind which, though the 
1)ody it animated is dust, still lives to guide and strengthen 
the children of men: 

Abou Ben Adhem — may his tribe increase — 
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace, 
And saw, within the moonliglit in his room, 
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, 
An angel writing in a book of gold. 
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold. 



70 REMARKS OF MR. WOODWARD ON THE 



And to the presence in the room he said, 
"What writest thou ?" The vision raised its head, 
And with a look made of all sweet accord. 
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord." 
"And is mine one ?" said Abou. " Nay, not so," 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low. 
But cheerly still, and said, " I pray thee, then, 
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men." 

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night 
It came again with a great wakening light, 
And show'd the names whom love of God had bless'd, 
And, lo ! Ben Adheni's name led all the rest. 



BemarJcs hy Mr. Woodward. 

Mr. Speaker: My acquaintance with Mr. Stevens began in 
1835. He was a man of mark from liis first appearance in tlie 
legislature of Pennsylvania, and he advanced at once in that 
body to the front rank of debaters, though the best talents of 
the State were then in the legislature. 

I well remember the passionate appeals by which he lashed 
our staid old commonwealth into a frenzy of prejudice against 
the Masonic institution for its guilty agency, supposed or 
actual, in the abduction and murder of Morgan, not long- 
before, in western New York. Mr. Stevens made himself the 
great champion of the anti-Masonic party, and the leader of 
those who elected Joseph Eitner governor in 1S35. Having 
accepted the office of canal commissioner from Governor Eit- 
ner, and retaining his seat in the legislature as the represen- 
tative of Adams county, he carried measures with a high 
hand for three years. Beyond all question he became the 
most inlluential man in Pennsylvania. The star of his fame 
culminated to its zenith. Doubtless his bold and earnest 
nature hurried him into many excesses of opinion ; but it is 
creditable to his memory that, in that day of his greatest 
power, he was the eloquent advocate of a system of common 



LIFE AND CHARACTEE OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 71 

schools wMch, though vehemently opposed in its origin, has 
gTown into great favor with the people of Pennsylvania. 
Governor Eitner, like many of the Germans of our State, 
regarded the system with distrust, while Governor Wolf, who 
was Eitner's competitor for gubernatorial honors in 1835, 
favored its introduction. Mr. Stevens staked his political 
fortunes on this measure. Alluding to the contest between 
Wolf and Eitner, and to its possible turn upon the school 
question, he exclaimed, " If this is to be a struggle between 
the powers of light and the ])owers of darkness, I go for him 
whose banner streams in light." His significant threat 
brought the anti-Masonic party into the support of the school 
law. 

It was during this period that I met Mr. Stevens in a popu- 
lar convention held in the court-house at Harrisburg, and 
which was called the " Integrity of the Union convention." 
Alarmed at the tendency of the measures of Kew England 
abolitionists, the people of Pennsylvania sent delegates to 
Harrisburg to strengthen the bands of the Union. Mr. 
Stevens ridiculed the convention into nothingness. Affecting 
excessive solicitude for the "integrity of the Union," he 
brought his matchless powers of invective and sarcasm to 
bear against every measure that was proposed, and, with the 
adoption of some unimportant resolutions, the convention 
vanished. 

I next met him in the Eeform Convention, a body elected 
in pursuance of law to propose amendments to the constitu- 
tion of Pennsylvania. At first he took a very active part in 
the organization and debates of this body, but gradually his 
interest in its proceedings subsided until he withdrew himself 
almost wholly from its deliberations. He declined to sign the 
new constitution because the word "white" had been intro- 
duced into the suffrage clause before the word freeman, thus 



72 REMARKS OF MR. WOODWARD ON THE 

limiting' suffi-age to wliite fieemeii. On no subject were his 
opinions more firmly fixed than in favor of the social and 
political equalitj^ of the African with the Caucasian. Of this 
his course in Congress, which is known and read of all men, 
has aftbrded abundant illustration. 

In the fall of 1838 the gxeat political contest came on 
between David E. Porter, the democratic candidate for gover- 
nor of Pennsylvania, and Governor Eitner, Avho was up for 
re-election on the anti-Masonic ticket. Mr. Stevens did his 
utmost for Eitner. He brought into full play not only all his 
great resources of eloquence, wit, and sarcasm, but as canal 
commissioner, having control of considerable patronage, he 
inaugurated a system of colonization for political effect, 
which politicians have improved upon and practiced more or 
less ever since. Porter beat Eitner in 1838, and then Mr. 
Stevens made the capital mistake of his life in determining to 
treat the election as if it had not occurred. This biought on 
the " buckshot war." That disturbance made no strain upon 
our political institutions. Indeed, it is doubtful if it excited 
as much attention from the people of the other States as its 
importance demanded, but abroad it was looked upon as a 
portentous event. The late Mr. Dallas, our then minister at 
the court of St. Petersburg, told me he was annoyed by daily 
notes from the whole diplomatic circle anxiously inquiring for 
the news from Harrisbiu-g, m hile his correspondents at home 
treated the subject as too insignificant to allude to, and there- 
fore he had no information to communicate. But the buck- 
shot war, if it wrought no great political revolution, took Mr. 
Stevens out of political life for many years. He removed to 
the city of Lancaster and addressed himself with gTeat ability 
and success to the practice of his profession. It was my 
privilege to know nuich of him as a lawyer, and it atibrds me 
far more pleasiue to contemplate his professional than his 
political career. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS, 73 

As a Pennsylvania lawyer lie had learned to appreciate that 
greatest luminary of tlie bench, Hon. John B. Gibson, and at 
the May term of the supreme court, in 1853, Mr. Stevens 
announced the decease of Judge Gibson in brief and exquisite 
terms. His neat speech, together with the more elaborate 
eulogy of Chief Justice Black, is printed in the seventh vol- 
ume of Harris's State Eeports, and both productions will well 
repay the perusal. 

As a lawyer Mr. Stevens was bold, honorable, and candid, 
clear in statement, brief in argTiment, and always deferential 
to the bench. He was not copious in his citation of adjudged 
cases. I think he relied more upon the reasons, than upon the 
authorities of the law. Indeed, his tastes inclined him rather 
to the study of polite literature than of the black letter. He 
loved Pope's Essay on Man more than Siderfin's Eeports. 
Yet he betrayed no defect of preparation at the bar. He 
always came with a keen discernment of the strong points of 
his case, and he spoke to them directly, concisely, and with 
good etfect. His humor was irrepressible and trenchant ; 
sometimes it cut like a Damascus blade. He was a lucky 
lawyer who would go through an argument with Mr. Stevens 
without being laughed at for something. Mr. Stevens's legal 
sagacity was exhibited here, in the presence of all of us, when 
he suggested the eleventh article of impeachment, which came 
nearer costing the President his official life than all the other 
articles together. 

But, Mr. Speaker, I have said enough to indicate the high 
regard in which the deceased was held as a lawyer in Penn- 
sylvania. Diifering from him, toto c(cIo, in politics and relig- 
ion, I caimot think that the final influence of his gTeat talents 
u])on the public mind will be salutary, nor do I think posterity, 
to whom the arbitrament belongs, will rank him as a benefac- 
tor of his race. But, nevertheless, there was much in him to 



74 REMARKS OF MR. ROBIXSOX ON THE 

admire. His houesty and directness of purpose, his courage, 
liis scorn and contempt for the low arts of political tricksters : 
his generosity to the poor, tor his hand and his heart were as 
open as the day to them ; his learning, his eloquence, his tem- 
perance, his industry, his firm will, his self-poise — these were 
the qualities that constituted his greatness and his excellence ; 
and if his fame outlasts the age in which he lived, it will be 
because it is buUt on these foundations. '' De mortuis nil imi 
bomim.'^ Dr. Johnson thought that for -'feo/nfm" we should 
read '• rerum." I approve the criticism, and I esteem it high 
praise of Mr. Stevens that it can be said of him he so passed 
through life that his name can endure the application of the 
maxim even in its improved reading. 



Remarhs hi/ Mr. Robinson. 

Mr. Speaker : Among the peoi^le of Ireland, whose legends 
and poetry are frequently fringed with the silver foam of super- 
stition, there is a venerable and ever-to-be-venerated custom, 
in the observance of which on meeting a funeral you turn with 
it, and for a time, however brief, become a part of the solemn 
procession. It matters not who treads the dark pathway to 
the grave, whether death's footbeats have knocked at the cas- 
tle or the cabin, to the rich and the poor, to the lowly and the 
lordly, is paid this universal homage, by to-day's li\-ing and 
to-morrow's dead. 

Athwart my weary footsteps over life's rugged highway this 
funeral procession to-day occurs. He who in life i)rovoked 
such enmities and secured such friendships is now beyond the 
reach of both, but as tliis pageant passes I uncover my head 
and mingle my footsteps in its solemnities. 

Of his political opinions, his loves and hatreds, his passions 
and his prejudices, it is not for me here to speak. With many 



LIFE AND CHAEACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 75 

of them I never coiikl. nor is it likely I ever shall, sympathize. 
My prejudices against him were as strong as his against others, 
and I must confess that on taking my seat here I shoidd not 
have regTetted had I been able to provoke a controversy with 
him, however much the odds might have been against me : and 
upon two or three occasions when he expressed dissent from 
my views I did not hesitate to intimate that it would not be 
disagreeable to me to receive his attack and break a lance with 
him. I had even gone so far as to look into the public records 
of his adopted State, over which his words and works are 
voluminously written, to see if I coidd find a crevice in his 
armor through which I might more successfully assail him. 
Had I provoked a controversy with him my temerity might 
have been made manifest to all, and might have betrayed me 
into langTiage which to-day and for all time would be a cause of 
regTct to me and mine. On two or thi'ee occasions when I 
addressed this House he came over to this side of the hall and 
took a seat in fi-ont of mine, sometimes interrupting me with 
a playful or more serious observation, but seeming to give a 
pleasant refusal to my rash challenge, and to wish rather to 
encourage than to wound. 

Is it unbecoming in me, therefore, now that his ear is for- 
ever closed to censure or to flattery, to say that my search 
for inconsistency in his public career was in vain : that he 
above aU men seemed at least consistent in his opinions and 
singularly bold in expressing and defending them '? 

To cowards and despots a hatred undying. 
For freedom a passion intense and relying, 

A pride in the resolute band ; 
A hope that could see not a danger to shun 
When bonds should be broken and liberty won. 

Eadically as we diliered on measures in defence of which 
most of his time recently was occupied, there were many sub- 
jects on which we had kindred sympathies. For the oppressed 



76 REMARKS OF MR. ROBINSOM ON THE 

people of Ireland, for tbe vindication of the rights of Ameri- 
can citizens, for the speedier extension of citizenship and 
snttVage to oiir immigrant population, he had strong and pro- 
nounced opinions. And to me it is a source of regret that his 
voice will not be heard nor will his intiuence be felt in the 
discussion and settlement of these questions ; that in the 
great contest whicb 1 fear is approaching on one of them, his 
clarion voice will not be heard as it would have been had he 
lived, rallying his followers and i)artisans to the defence of the 
Declaration of Independence, w^hich he contended guaran- 
teed to the governed the right of choosing their governors by 
universal manhood suftrage, as well for recent emigrants from 
despotisms in Europe as for immediate emigrants from slavery 
everywhere. 

We have all observed the frail and yet tenacious hold w^hich 
he appeared to have on life. Nature had given him many 
difficulties to conquer ; society had bestowed on him but few 
of its smiles. His life seemed to be a life of sorrow suffi- 
ciently marked to explain, if not to excuse, his apparent 
bitterness. No kindly voice to whisper comfort in his sor- 
row\s ; no hand to soften the asperities with which this Avorld's 
conflicts will harden the downiest pillow ; no kindred heart in 
whose sympathetic throbbings he could read the alphabet of 
love. He seemed like an eagle, perched alone upon a blasted 
oak in sullen and defiant majesty, scorning alike the chatter 
and the scream of other birds around him ; his eye sometimes 
seemingly covered with film as of down from the passing wing 
of death, but in a moment shooting into pinions on w^hich he 
proudly soared to the sun. 

That proud and defiant spirit, often fierce, sometimes unfor- 
giving, and always bold and honest, has passed away. Is it 
l)resumption to hoi)e that beneath all his outward apparent 
harshness there was an undercurrent of benevolence ; that 
the thunder-cloud which hung upon his rugged brow, and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER 01:' THADDEUS STEVENS. 77 

from beneath which flashed the lightning of his snnken eye, 
melted into the rainbow of hope and the light of love, and 
that the closing scenes of his life, the holy influence, pure 
prayers, and sacred rites of the pious sisters, to whom both 
here and at Emmittsburg, in Maryland, he had shown many 
favors, and who repaid him tenfold in the deep devotion of 
their unselfish love, as they wafted his departed spii'it to the 
gates of heaven on their trembling petition, and closed his 
eyes in death : with the blessing of the venerable octogenarian 
priest of Lancaster, still living, who loved and honored him 
through life, cleansed his soul from sin, and that his spirit 
was admitted to the mansions of the blest ? 

But, Mr. Speaker, I am apparently forgetting that I turned 
my footsteps only for a moment with this sad procession, not 
to deliver any eidogy or to recall his frailties. I rose simply 
to fling upon his passing bier a flower — woidd that it were 
worthier — a daisy or a shamrock, wet with the dew-drop of a 
sincere and sympathizing tear ; and join in the prayer which 
thousands waft to Heaven to-day that his spirit may rest in 
eternal peace. 



Bemarhs hy J/">-. Syplier. 

Mr. Speaker : The character of Mr. Stevens in his relations 
as a fellow-townsman has been most ably and ai)proi>riately 
commented on by the gentleman from Pennsylvania who suc- 
ceeds him in this house. His distinguished services in the 
State of his adoption, both in the cause of common schools 
and the construction of public works, may with just propriety 
be cited as among the most honorable achievements of his life. 
I pass over the j)eriod given to fostering and building up the 
institutions of the great commonwealth which he so highly 
honored, and come immediately to lay upon the grave of this 



REMARKS OF MR. SYPHER ON THE 

great chaiiipioii of freedom the grateful thanks of an eman- 
cipated race, of a disenthraUed people, and of States regen- 
erated. It is not unnatural that the loyal constituency of 
myself and colleagues on this floor from the south should 
have regarded Mr. Stevens as the foremost as well as the 
most earnest and trustworthy defender of their rights. These 
people have ever been in the peculiar situation of living 
within the lines of the enemy, and, therefore, dnring all their 
days of hope and nights of despair, looking northward for 
deliverance, the stalwart form of him who always led the 
advance guard, and who never retired behind the picket line, 
was ever most prominently in view. 

Thaddeus Stevens was born a leader. Men, i^olicies, and 
parties were not allowed to stand in his way. His life was 
devoted to the cause of hnmanity, and whatever race or indi- 
vidual wrongfully oj)i)ressed strove to rise above the oppressor, 
found in him a true and faithful friend and able advocate. 

Thirty years' active participation in the anti-slavery move- 
ment in this country, and a thorough analysis of the charac- 
ter of the slaveholder, had fully prepared him to enter into an 
armed struggle against treason and traitors. He had no 
symj)athy with peace conferences, compromises, and resolu- 
tions of j)aciflcation. In the autumn of 1860 he wrote to a 
young man then in Memphis, Tennessee, "The only way to 
end this rebellion is to conqner the rebels." From the first 
hour when secession was proclaimed in South Carolina and 
the i)roi)erty of the nation was seized by southern rebels his 
voice was for war. In State and in national council, in his 
place on the floor of this house, in private conferences with 
the President and the cabinet, he advocated a vigorous pros- 
ecution of the war on war principles. His propositions Avere 
so bohl that timid men were startled and stood fixed in amaze- 
ment. Before the sound of the first gun fired in the cause of 
treason and rebellion had reached the northern border of the 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 79 

republic, he declared tbat freedom should be proclaimed to 
every slave in the land, and the loyal men of the south, both 
white and black, should be invited to enroll themselves in 
defence of the Union. He maintained that public safety 
demanded nothing less. The brave old man would have called 
a million of men into service and would have marched amid 
the clash of steel and the roar of artillery from the Potomac 
to the Gulf. 

Thus he woukl have swept treason before him, and behind 
him, he would have left an unquestionable guarantee of per- 
fect equality of rights before the law. In the spring of 18G2 
he declared upon this Hoor in favor of immediate emancipa- 
tion. President Lincoln plainly and emiihatically expressed 
his disapprobation of this measure, and avowed that the 
administration was not in sympathy with that movement. 
Late in the summer, after the nation had been disciplined by 
the fiiilure of the peninsular campaign, President Lincoln 
turned to the speech in which this great and wise measure 
was advocated. He sent for Mr. Stevens, apologized for the 
opi^osition made to him, and declared himself in favor of eman- 
cipation. These two great men of the nation were agreed as to 
the fact, but diifered as to time. Stevens favored immediate 
emancipation; Lincoln thought best to give the rebels due 
notice that they would lose their slaves if they did not lay 
down their arms. Fortunate, thrice fortunate for the nation 
and especially for my constituents, the God of nations hard- 
ened the hearts of the enemy and they did not cease to make 
war, and therefore, at the expiration of one hundred days, 
came the proclamation of freedom that Stevens would have 
issued three hundred days before. 

Following the emancipation came the struggle on the ques- 
tion of arming the colored men of the south, who had just 
obtained the right of self-ownership. Stevens again boldly 
advanced to the picket line and lashed his tardy cojnpeers up 



80 REMARKS OF MR. SYPHER OX THE 

to tlic duty of self-preservation. Wlien the last terrible Wow 
had enislied armed rebellion the work of the soldier ended 
and that of the statesman began; then the doctrine of univer- 
sal amnesty was promulgated from the highest places in the 
nation ; it Avas preached from the jjulpit ; it was recommended 
in cabinet; it was advocated in the most poAverful journals in 
the land. In the mighty struggle that followed, wherein all 
that had been won by force of arms was about to be sacrificed 
by the sophistry of diplomacy, Stevens was again the bul- 
wark of the nation, almost the sole defender of the rights of 
the loyal millions of the southern States. But for his services 
in the work of reconstruction a whole race of people, upon 
whom the first rays of the light of freedom had just dawned, 
would have been siuTendered unconditionally into the hands 
of the enemy. 

Step by step he fought his way up, dragging the nation 
after him, until he attained, by the aid of many able and 
brave associates in Congress, the organization and establish- 
ment of governments in the rebellious States u^jon the basis 
of a loj^al citizenship and perfect equality of rights. In this 
final labor of his life, when victory dawned ui)on the nation, 
the heroic old man died at his post, beckoning the people for- 
ward to higher and nobler achievements. I^ever will the 
services of this great man be duly appreciated by those in the 
defence of whose rights he so manfully struggled. His name, 
with that of Lincoln, will ever be remembered with the warm- 
est emotions of gratitude by this and succeeding generations 
of the emancipated peoi)le of America, when others now 
esteemed great shall have been forgotten. He needs no statue 
of bronze, no pillar of marble with carved inscriptions to tell 
posterity his fame. The labors and achievements of his life 
have rendered him immortal. In the name of the loyal south, 
whose fertile fields have been oj)ened to free and skilled 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF THADDEUS STEVENS. 81 

labor; in the name of toiling millions seeking homesteads; 
in the name of States now no longer cursed by slavery; in the 
name of a people struggling from abject slavery wp to perfect 
freedom ; in the name of a race once declared to be possessed 
of no rights which white men were bound to respect, but now 
clothed Avith the full rights of citizenship, which the whole 
power of the nation is pledged to defend, I thank God that 
Thaddeus Stevens lived and labored and triumphed. 



Bcmarls hy 3lr. Whittemore. 

Mr. SPEAifER : I cannot expect, nor do I endeavor, to excel 
the words "so fitly spoken" eulogistic of the life, character, 
intluence, and worth of "the great commoner," whose name 
has dwelt so often upon the lips of the whole people, whose 
words and works have become a part of the history of our 
national greatness, whose good and generous heart beat in 
sympathy for all humanity, whose every effort was inspired 
for the elevation, improvement, and prosperity of the race; 
but I can express somewhat the grief wliich the i)eople of mj^ 
State, in common with our whole country, have felt in the loss 
of him who was the friend of all men, who loved his neighbor 
as himself, who was an invincible pioneer in all the noble 
measures which have become the security of our hopes and 
the ark of safety of our national unity. The emancipated, 
the enfranchised, the reconstructed, the restored States, the 
millions redeemed from the house of bondage, once chattels, 
now freemen, with their title deeds of citizenship guaranteed, 
who owe so much to his untiring efforts in their behalf, his 
uncompromising fidelity to the right, felt in his loss that a 
peer of Abraham Lincoln had fallen; and in their memories 
will ever live sacred associations clustering around the coun- 
sels he has given, the hope and courage he has inspired, the 
G 



82 KEMARKS OF ME. COVODE ON THE 

glorious fruitioii of his life-long wish and labor. In the homes 
of the lowly, in the hearts of the emaueipated, he has been 
enshrined. 

When the sad news of the death of Thaddens Stevens 
reached my State the general assembly of South Carolina 
passed approi)riate resolutions and draped her legislative halls 
in the semblances of mourning. Throughout the Common- 
wealth expressions of sorrow upon countenance and lip were 
the true exponents of the solemn bereavement that had been 
visited upon the nation. South Carolina, with her sisters, re- 
stored to her place in the councils of the republic by his per- 
sistent endeavor autl patriotic labor, weeps for the mighty 
dead, thanking the Giver of all good for the examples of his 
life, the sterling honesty of his nature, and unflinching de^o- 
tion to right, justice, and truth. 

I saw him, when he was yet among us at the close of the 
session in July, weak in body, yet powerful in mind, true to 
the last at his post. Upon informing him of the results which 
had been accomplished in South Carolina through the policies 
he had so unceasingly advocated and triumphantly secured, 
he said to me: "Go on, sir; never fear to do right." I shall 
ever remember his, to me, last words. His voice will ever be 
hear<l inspiring me in the future of mylife-toil, my private and 
public responsibilities. 

Let the exhortation of the nations, "Well done, good and 
faithful servant," influence us in all the legislation before us 
wliich he may have left unflnished, to be true to our God, our 
country, ourselves, and our fellow-men. 



Remayl's hy Mr. Covofle. 

I cannot hope to add anything to the mournful interest of 
this occasion, (U- to contribute to a true appreciation of the 
character, ser\ices, and merits of Mr. Stevens ; but my inti- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OP THADDEUS STEVENS. 83 

macy with liiiu was so close and loug-contiuuecl, my admira- 
tion for him so sincere and thorough, and my sorrow at his 
death so deep, that I feel constrained to offer a humble tribute 
to his memory. 

The beginning of his public career antedates most of the 
men now active in the politics of Pennsylvania, and his career 
was stormy, eventful, and remarkable, for it covered more 
than 40 years of ceaseless activity. Few men have ever 
aroused so intense feeling; his friends were drawn to him by 
an irresistible fascination, and were bound to him by the in- 
dissoluble tie of admiration and love. His enemies were ever 
repelled by the undaunted, almost haughty manner in which 
he met their advances. By nature a thorough, logical, and 
consistent radical, he cordially sx>urned every species of com- 
l>romise, and he utterly contemned that truckling policy which 
so generally barters solid principle for temporary advantage. 
He despised every form of time-serving, and was absolutely 
scornful in his contempt for tricksters. His path was ever 
straight to the goal of his ambition over every obstacle and 
hindrance. He never deviated in his faith or his purpose, 
save when a modification of means might hasten and insure 
the accomplishment of his purpose. He was loftily and hero- 
ically devoted to the ideas which possessed him, grandly true 
to the great thoughts which filled and animated his noble soul. 
He was a sincere lover of mankind, a keen sympathizer with 
poverty, an honest hater of injustice, a friend of the down- 
trodden, and faithful fighter for the rights of all men to free- 
dom, protection, and security. This was the key-note of his 
l)ublic career, and the path he trod is illustrated all along with 
the proofs of liis fidelity to those principles which were early 
implanted and wliicli (piickly ri])ened into animating motives. 

In his private relations he was eminently liirgc-hearted. 
He was a truthfid man, an honorable man, a thoroughly 



84 EEMARKS OF MR. COVODE, ETC. 



manly niau. His charity was as extensive as his knowledge 
of sutlering-, and was inincely in its liberality. He Avas in his 
personal relations kindly, affectionate, tender and winning. 
No man excelled him in the brilliancj' of his conversation, 
none left his i)resence nnimpressed by his ever active sympa- 
thies. The devotion to his mother of this lion-hearted man 
Avas at once a proof and an illustration of his capacity for the 
deepest and tenderest feeling. Absorbed most of his life in 
the keen pursuits of politics, some hardening of the nature 
might naturally have been expected, but only those who 
knew him in closest intimacy knew how his weaiy heart 
yearned for loving objects to rest upon. 

But he has gone. Whatever we may have felt in life, we 
all now realize how large a space he filled, how sagacious 
and true he was, how nobly and unselfishly devoted to his 
country, how sedulously careful he was to guard it from pros- 
pective dangers, and how comi>rehensively he realized what 
measures were necessary to give the country security for the 
futiu-e. Let us go forward in the policy he traced, fortify the 
buttresses of the nation, and let the republic, thoroughly 
reconstructed upon the principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, and thereby dedicated to immortal life, be worthily 
his ever-endimng monument. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted ; and thereupon 
(at -1 o'clock p. m.) the House adjourned. 



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